Jalopnik: How The U.S. Government Killed The Safest Car Ever Built.
Not tin foil. It seems to be true.
Not looking so great right this minute:
BP’s renewed efforts at plugging the flow of oil from its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico stalled again on Friday, as the company suspended pumping operations for the second time in two days before resuming the procedure Friday evening, according to a technician involved with the response effort.
I hope this cautious optimism about stopping the gushing oil in the Gulf is correct. Even so, it's “progress” only in the sense of “not making things even worse.”
The latest effort to plug a gushing underwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico appeared to be working, officials and engineers said on Thursday morning, though definitive word on its success was still hours away.
Disaster junkies may enjoy the live blogging of the efforts to stop the spill.
Even if they stop it now, though, there's an awful lot of oil in the water.
At the same time, government experts said that the flow of oil from the well, which has been gushing since an explosion and fire wrecked a drilling rig in late April, was several times worse than the preliminary estimate by BP, the oil company responsible for the rig and the well. If these new estimates prove to be accurate, the spill would be far bigger than the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 and the worst in United States history.
The folks at Miami-Dade County government have a web page on Deepwater Horizon Response. Do they get a point for being proactive? Or do they lose one for their rather rosy crystal ball:
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is not expected to impact Miami-Dade's beaches or fishing industry, and it is unclear if it ever will.
Perhaps they mean “The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is not expected to impact Miami-Dade's beaches or fishing industry yet, and it is unclear if it ever will”?
Or are they maybe just a little concerned about a major local industry:
We continue to welcome residents and visitors and remain one of the world's top beach destinations.
Or, who knows, maybe they are right? While a few days ago the headline was Dread as oil spill enters current flowing to South Florida, yesterday it was Loop Current destabilizes, lowering threat to Florida — for now.
Unfortunately, for now the best sub-head seems to be 'Impossible to predict'….except that wherever this huge mass of oil goes it will take a very long time to clean up, and even longer to overcome its effects.
Jotwell Blenderlaw