Junk shot/explosion images for the record...

Screen grabs from either the junk shot or unplanned rupture (or both). These are in sequence, from roughly 8:30 ET this morning. Update: It appears, at least judging by the timestamp, that the live feed is back to monitoring the mud, and things look much like they did before...(??) Update II: Now the timestamp has been changed back to 7 am, and it appears to be looped from before the explosion....

"There is no light from the surface at one mile deep. All the lights come from ROVs," says Anonymous, no doubt correctly. It's sure as shit dark now, as they appear[ed] to be inspecting the carnage.
















































...since nobody else seems to have noticed(!), and who knows how long the video will be available (probably another few minutes...then at BP's discretion). An hour later almost every media outlet is still reporting on their BS "success" story fed to us (and the President) despite being completely false, yesterday.

Update: Apparently The Oil Drum (where more knowledgeable folks hang out) noticed this morning as well (though comments are all cautious and speculative).

I've uploaded the video of the occurrence here.

And then it just blows up..

Holy fucking hell.


So much for that. I just watched it live. The whole damn thing just blew. Enormous explosion (and then several more flashes), swirling and raining huge debris, now floating in near black.

It looked terribly just before it blew, clearly under enormous pressure and the ruptures in the top getting visibly worse. It was like watching a brain splitting and hemorrhaging, then the camera rocks and spins with the force of the explosion toward the light near the surface, and then it's a swirling shitstorm for about one or two very long minutes, like being in the middle of an underwater hurricane or typhoon. Large schools of what appears to be rock coming out of nowhere at tremendous speed, swirling oil and mud and bubbles of no doubt that criminally toxic Corexit they banned in the UK for surface use (and now poisons the entire water column and food chain in the Gulf, as BP continues in its corporate quest to disappear the full extent of damages).

Now it's just a deathly swirl of black, floating bubbles and black. No more light is coming from the surface ROVs.

A complete nightmare. Way to go, BP! At least your PR campaign is still working, making liars of the President and General all day yesterday, and the MSM has yet to report anything but your latest "success."

Who knows how long the video will be around. Nobody seems to be reporting on it yet. I've watched it several times now, and gotten lots and lots of screen grabs...

Shocker: this doesn't look so good, as "solutions" go...

Yesterday's news, today:

In the morning, federal officials expressed optimism that all was going well. “The top kill procedure is going as planned, and it is moving along as everyone had hoped,” Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, the leader of the government effort, told CNN.

And Robert Dudley, BP’s managing director, said on the “Today” program on NBC that the top kill “was moving the way we want it to.”

It was not until late afternoon that BP acknowledged that the operation was not succeeding and that pumping had halted at 11 p.m. Wednesday.

So much for transparency or accountability...

That mudbath they've created is obscuring their ability to tell the truth, naturally. BP would prefer to make outright liars of the President and his General, for two nights and one full day, if it better suits their PR operation for the public to remain at least a day behind. Hardly surprising, perhaps, after a full month of being in the dark. Also:

Mud traveling through the riser pipe instead of into the well is a concern not only for the success of the top kill procedure, but also because the mud, which contains solid materials, could erode the pipe, causing more leaks.

The question remains, how much time can BP buy with this latest failure? And can they write off the expenses fast enough to make us pay for it?

Watch live streaming video from wkrg_oil_spill at livestream.com

Adjust the rate to over 3 million gallons/day for a picture of reality based on independent experts, as opposed to PR.

Corexit: banned in the UK for a reason

From an article here (with linked references):

As we’ve reported, Corexit was also used after the Exxon Valdez disaster [8] and was later linked with human health problems including respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders. One of the two Corexit products also contains a compound that, in high doses, is associated with headaches, vomiting and reproductive problems [9].

Given that the dispersants are EPA-approved, the choice of which ones to use was left to BP, which had stockpiled large amounts of Corexit and is now ordering more.

BP has defended its choice to use Corexit. A BP spokesman called the product [5] “pretty effective,” and said it had been “rigorously tested.” It is not testing other dispersants, he said, [5] because it’s focusing on stopping the spill. Mani Ramesh, the chief technology officer for Nalco, which makes Corexit, disputed claims that the product is harmful to the environment [10], telling Reuters that Corexit’s active ingredient is “an emulsifier also found in ice cream.”

Dispersants like Corexit break up oil into droplets that linger longer in the water instead of collecting at the surface. The choice to use them is inherently an environmental tradeoff. Their use in the Gulf spill has limited the instances—and images—of oil-covered seabirds, but has kept the effects of the spill mostly underwater. Scientists have discovered giant plumes of dispersed oil [11] in the deep waters of the Gulf, though the EPA has said “there is no information currently available [12]” to link the dispersants to those deep-sea plumes. The plumes are now fast approaching the Gulf loop current [13], which could spread the oil into the Atlantic Ocean. (read the whole thing)

Also, it turns out that BP owns the company that makes Corexit, so no wonder they don't have time to test or try anything less toxic. Fishermen and brown people, meanwhile, trying to help clean up the mess, are collapsing and getting sick, just like the last time BP's company profited by using Corexit on the Exxon Valez spill.

What Obama should say and do this afternoon

But probably won't. Sadly.

Any independent views on this?

Adjust the rate, unless you believe in BP propaganda.

Several days ago (after having the live feed available for one month) press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "...certainly, the Exxon Valdez was bigger than this [only 11 million gallons]..." Knowing that nobody in that room would effectively call him on it. Somebody needs to loop that clip, and put it side by side with the above....or with the following PR session in which BP openly brags (granted, perhaps lying through his teeth) to have sucked up "22,000 barrels/day" with their insertion tube. (Hey Robert Gibbs, that's almost a million gallons per day, four weeks and counting...not to mention that video showed this same tube barely making a dent in the total flow. Why don't you go work for Sarah Palin.) This thing is 14 times the size of Exxon Valdez already, and worse by-who-knows-what-degree for being underwater. Saving a few birds and beaches means nothing when you kill the entire food chain, assholes.

Obama needs to pull a Bush

In other words...ROLL UP HIS SLEEVES AND CLEAR SOME FUCKING BRUSH:


Carville: "The President needs to tell BP: I'm your daddy."

(Another) top hat, with 50-50 chance of making things worse

Of course if it isn't a complete disaster Wednesday (making the spill immediately, visibly worse) BP will undoubtedly declare victory. But will independent observers agree? The plot thickens...

BP should be forced to publicly apologize and face jail time for not following this guy's advice:

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Corexit: all about hiding the evidence

A rare look at the majority of the spill, suspended in the water column and laced with toxic chemicals (banned in the UK).

Or as The Saint Petersburg Times puts it:

"You're making a decision to save your birds at the expense of your larval fish and shellfish population," agreed Henderson. But marine life should be able to bounce back more rapidly, he said.

That's when the dispersants are sprayed on the surface, as their manufacturer recommends. Over the past week, BP has been testing a radical approach, shooting the dispersants at the source of the leaks a mile beneath the surface, even though EPA officials say the effects of underwater use "are still widely unknown."

[...]

"It's all about trade-offs," said Beth McGee, senior water quality scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and one of the authors of the 2005 study. "You look at the resources at risk and you make a choice." While there may be some sickness and fatalities among the fish population, she said, "you hope you're saving some beaches or marshes."

How's that working out...

"It's BP's oil"

Mac McClellan walks the corporate blockade at Louisiana's now crude-based beaches.






Quite a few more protest and otherwise amazing photos from the Greenpeace flickr set, here. Greenpeace also has a boat on scene and very active blog, from whence this adjustable counter (putting the lie to Robert Gibbs' obscene mutterings that the Exxon Valdez was certainly much bigger...someone needs to loop that video from the press conference):



For those paying attention: a very good chance the blowout is already at least ten times larger than the worst spill in U.S. history, the Exxon Valdez. Also, guess who botched the clean-up response to that one?

custom-made wedding board, for signatures...

100,000 barrels/4.2 million gallons per day

wkrg_oil_spill on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Live blowout video feed also here.

The immediate damage from the blowout: already irrevocable. The response of those ostensibly in power: inexcusably, deliberately pathetic. All show, no substance. Don't expect any real pushback from environmental business groups, either.

Anyway, I sure think the world deserves a public explanation of why this guy's advice fell, and continues to fall, on deaf ears:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

hilarious

11 things the White House could be doing on BP blowout

Excellent post on the administration's response to BP spill. Go read the whole thing now.

HR5353: The War is Making You Poor Act

God Bless Alan Grayson:

Wake up, Obama

Wake up, Obama. Robert Redford at least fights the good fight.

A Florida paper lays the blame properly. Update: As does Peter Daou.

Simon Johnson, et. al. on the future of Europe's economies.

going 'round...

GreenRiverWoods.Etsy.Com

A list

• 9 oil disasters waiting to happen

• Conflicts of interest at heart of BP's month-late "study" of its own disastrous mess.

• Vast majority of spill could lurk underwater for months, years. As was known by BP (before they actively encouraged it to happen).

Real News Network video