(From RGB’s sister blog, FailDrill.com) Despite the glowing headlines proclaiming “Gulf Oil Stops Flowing”, we’re not out of the woods yet. In a conference call this afternoon, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen announced that pressure levels have NOT risen high enough in the recently-capped well. This could mean one of two things: The oil [...]
Bad News from the Gulf – BP Delays Testing New Cap
July 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Fail Follow-up: Jindal’s Berms Already Washing Away
July 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Fail update… Remember Bobby Jindal’s brilliant plan to bulldoze sand out into the Gufl? To form berms to keep the oil from getting ashore? Robert S. Young, an authority on shoreline geology at Western Carolina University. His take: The White House has announced that this project is now moving forward, despite serious concerns among coastal scientists, [...]
George Lakoff Advises Democrats Against “Disaster Messaging”
July 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Why have the Democrats been having such a hard time passing environmental legislation? And everything else, for that matter? Despite control of both houses of Congress and the White House, even the measures they get through (like the Health Care Reform, or the pending energy bill) are watered-down, half-baked compromises that Democrats have to hold [...]
Obama Administration Tightens Clean Air Laws
July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment
New rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday will require 31 states to significantly improve their air quality for the sake of the rest of the country. The new rule which will be known as the Transport Rule will require 31 states and the District of Columbia to significantly improve their air quality by [...]
Long Term Oil Spill Spread
July 6, 2010 By 1 Comment
A computer simulation of the possible spread of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill over the course of a full year has been released. This article originally published on Planetsave.com. Created by researchers from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the animation is not a [...]
Louisiana’s War over the Drilling Moratorium
July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment
President Obama’s deep-water drilling moratorium has touched off a political war because it threatents the empires of two families at the heart of Louisian’s Republican oligarchy – the Bollingers and the Choests. Bobby Jindal is fighting to protect the wealth of his biggest benefactors – as well as his job.
BP Bans Media Access – Coast Guard Helps
July 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment
(From Important Media’s newest blog: FailDrill, covering the Gulf Oil Disaster.)
So much for the First Amendment.
Corporations spending money to influence elections… that’s free speech, protected by the First Amendement, according to our Supreme Court.
But reporters talking to oilfield workers? Or taking pictures of booms? Sorry, that’s a felony.
Yobie Benjamin of the SF Gate is outraged:
…Allen has issued a blanket order that bans anyone from getting close to any spill clean up site, boom site, areas where there are clean up workers or any other oil disaster related area or persons effectively shutting down the first amendment rights of the media. The zone of exclusion is 65 feet. There was rumor that Coast Guard bosses wanted to impose a 300 feet exclusion zone but later relented to a 65 feet no trespass and exclusion zone.
This is despite assurances from Thad Allen that there will be full transparency on all clean-up operations. Allen claims local officials were asking the Coast Guard to create a media-free buffer zone. However no media outlet — television, print, Internet or radio could find a single local official who requested the Coast Guard to ban media access to oil sludge sites on land or water. Since no local official requesting a no media zone can be found, it can only be assumed that the ban was requested by BP.
