Obama's Woeful Lack of Presidential Leadership
          Is Making The Gulf Catastrophe Much Worse.

                                                    by William Schmidt, Ph.D. 
                                 (C) 2010  www.tigersoft.com  All rights reserved.

             The Gulf of Mexico is now being destroyed by British Petroleum.  Obama
        is tied up in knots of indecision.  On April 20, 2010, an entire month ago, BP
        lost control of is deepest well.  To save $500,000 in the well's construction,
        BP chose to not install a remote emmergency cut-off valve that would have
        prevented this spillage calamity.  Since then a volcanic eruption of oil from
        4 miles below the surface of the sea has been spewing into the Gulf.  Estimates
       are now that 95,000 barrels of crude oil are leaking each day. This is 19 times
       larger than British Petroleum admitted at first.   The oil is coming out at a rate
       four times greater than any other Gulf oil well.  Instead of destroying their well
       with the help of US NAVY explosive experts, BP has been flooding the sea with a
       highly concentrated oil dispersant that will eventually destroy all sea life.  The EPA
       has just demanded they use another dispersant, but BP has refused.  
      
             How could British Petroleum not have foreseen the risks.   Why were they not
        much more careful?   Why should they be now trusted to fix the volcano of oil they
       have recklessly created?  Profits not the environment are their chief concern. 


            Can BP really be made to pay for all the ill tragic consequences of their disregard
        for basic safety and environmental concerns?  The cost will be hundreds of
        billion dollars, when one adds up the all the lost jobs and all the people who get
        sick from eating contaminated sea food in the years to come.  Their assets should
        be seized now.  Otherwise, they will never pay for the damages and suffering they will
        have caused.  Why has Obama entrusted them with fixing the problem? 


                                                           
                                              Obama - "What? Me? Do Something?"

             Why is he silent on the week-after-week delay in stopping the leak.  Why has he not
        called for ideas from the world's best minds to solve the problem?  What will it take
        to make Obama do something, other than chatter vacuosouly about the spill?
        What will it take get him personally angry enough about the calamity to show that
        he actually cares and, for once is a leader, instead of just being an empty orator
        seeking votes?  Does he realize how disgusting is his lack of use of the Presidency
        to be a real leader?  He should resign.   He is just not up to the job!

             The news seems overwhelmingly bad.  I think one of the problems is that the
       national leadership is seen only responding to worsening events and not offering
       hope through leadership.  Obama is great with words, a crowd and a teleprompter.
       But he is excruciatingly cautious.  He is good at restating problems.  But he seems
       utterly unable to think for himself.  He needs experts to tell him what to do.  He delays
       a solution by getting others to study the problem for months.  With oil streaming out
       of the man-made volcano every minute in the Gulf, the weakness in his dilatory approach
       could not be clearer.

          Meanwhile the Gulf comes closer and closer to being a vast Dead Zone, a sea
       with no oxygen or sea life. 

                 "

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,”
said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific
missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in
multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen
level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes. "
( http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/it-time-blow-leaking-gulf-oil-well-b )

          What is worse, Obama is turning the job of finding solutions over to the same people
that created the problem or have shown no ability to solve it when Bush was President. 
This has been true with his handling of Wall Street's big banks, Iraq-Afghanistan,
health insurance and now the Gulf.   I don't doubt that Obama has held meetings about
the Gulf crisis.  The problem is nothing comes from these meetings!

          Obama too often is unwilling to offend and challenge the biggest corporations.  It seems
clear that British Pete put their profits ahead of protecting workers and the environment.
This is not the first time that they have done this.    Now they only want to use as methods
to stop the vast oil flow they have created into the Gulf, those which will save their well. 
They prefer to use golf balls and mud, instead of getting the US Navy's help in just
blowing up the pipeline.  The more dramatic approach would probably work quickly and
effectively.   It would save the Gulf from slow death by oil strangulation.  Left to BP's experts,
the leakage may continue for months and months.

          Is such an approach feasible?    The pipeline that is spewing unmeasured amounts
of raw crude actually goes down 15000 feet below the bottom of the ocean to the oil field. 
Exploding the pipeline would not mean opening up the whole oil field to sudden release.
The pressure of the seawater 1 mile down is tremendous.  This pressure would hold the       
displaced sea bottom in place if explosions were planted to push in and cave in the
pipeline from all sides.  This would certainly block the hole better than mud and golf balls.  

         Here's the argument for caution and not trying to blow up the well directly from above.
                        "The problem is the downhole well pressure.  I am sure it exceeds
                  the BOP rated pressure of 15,000 PSI.(even with a BOP safety factor of 25%.
                  It may exceed 20,000 PSI at present) . Thats why  they are waiting for the
                  pressure to reduce to an acceptable safe pressure to try the "Top Kill"
                  or "Junk shot" solution.   If they try either of these two solutions before
                  the pressure drops below the BOP threshold it could compromise the whole
                  BOP and well itself.  You think we have a problem now,   LOL   If they blow
                  it up it will do nothing but put a crater down there  (on the ocean floor) and
                  then you will have a real gusher (open well with more than 5+ million barrels
                  a day blazing out)  So I respect the caution because it is warranted...  Let
                  them try on Sunday because you dont want an open well hole that's 36" wide
                  blowing at 20,000+ PSI (Trust). "

                 >A reply to this: "My thought was that they could cause the 15000' well to
              cave in on itself by placing explosions on all sides. You're assuming a big crater
              right over the hole."   ( Source )

         But Obama wants to study the cause of the whole mess and he has given British Pete
complete operational control of  fixing the problem.  Is it too harsh to say that he is
afraid to make a decision and is with just passing the buck?   Worse, he is again turning it
back over to the very "experts" who caused the problem.  I have said before Obama has
the backbone of a jellyfish.  One might have hoped he would relate better to the death
of millions of sea creatures.  While I hope I am totally wrong, Obama's mode of avoiding
making big decisions is now all too clear.  I think we are in big trouble with him as
President. 

        Trusting British Petroleum seems foolish.   Google BP's "safety record" and see
for yourself.    An ABC News report said that OSHA issued 860 warnings of very serious
safety violations at their refineries.  By comparison, Sunoco, the next highest, had 8
warnings and Exxon had only one. 

        A month ago, numerous state and federal Web sites sent out-of-work Gulf
fishermen to a BP Web site, which offered cleanup contracts povided they agreed
to limit their future claims against the company.  BP has refused to stop using the toxic oil dispersant that the EPA asked it to discontinue using.  Obama remains silent.  BP has
continually refused to let others monitor the rate of spillage.  How can they be serious
about getting help from other experts, if they are not honest about how much oil
is coming out.  Clearly, they want to save their well and reduce claims that may be made
on them.  The outcome is apt to be a new Dead Sea.

                           Is it time to blow up the leaking Gulf oil well?
                   BP doing its best to keep that option under wraps

                "If we demolish the well using explosives, the investment's gone.
            They lose hundreds of millions of dollars, from the drilling of the well,
            plus no lawmaker in his right mind would allow BP to drill again in that
           same spot. So basically, it's an all-or-nothing thing with BP: They either
           keep the well alive, or they lose their whole investment and all the oil that
           they could potentially get from that well.

               "We need to seal this thing off. ...But why hasn't anyone been bringing
           a complete shutdown of the well to the table? ...(T)he reason why we haven't seen
           that option is because, frankly, BP is still at the helm....Obama needs to take
           charge of this, bring all the assets of our military to bear, bring the U.S. Army
           Corps of engineers, bring the U.S. Navy, and bring in all the private-sector
           organizations that have the equipment for deep-sea operations to make
           this happen. Let's explode this, collapse the well, and put an end to it."

              "Call in the Top Brains from around the world and come up with some "Viable Solutions.
            BP obviously does not have the brain power for the job!..Why wouldn't you drill down 1000 - 1500 ft
            close to the existing leaking pipe and set off an adequate underwater explosive charge in the new pipe
            that would severe the leaking pipe, 1,000 to 1,500 under ground."  ( Source )
           

                                              British Petroleum's Solutions

           1) A giant toilet to cover up the well.  This failed. 

           2) Golf Balls and Mud.   "Top Kill" and "Junk Shot". 
                        The "top kill" method involves shooting heavy mud into crippled equipment
                   on top of the well, then aiming cement at the well to permanently keep down the
                   oil. Even if it works it could take several weeks to complete. "This is all being done
                   at a depth of 5,000 feet and it's never been done at these depths before,"
                   said Doug Suttles of BP PLC.
                        If the top kill effort fails, BP is considering a "junk shot," which involves
                    shooting knotted rope, pieces of tires and golf balls into the "blowout preventer."

           3) A "relief" well may be working in six months to reduce the pressure of the primary well.

           4) Dangerous chemical  (Corexit) is being used  to break up the oil, regardless of
          big dangers to clean-up workers.   No one should eat ANY seafood from the Gulf.
          How will BP ever pay all the damages they will owe.  Their assets should be seized now.
                           "Concentrations of Corexit like those used by BP kill "50 to 100% of all marine life! AND
                            100% by newborn marine life!!...THE GOM IS DEATH!!  BP MADE 40 MILLIONS PROFIT
                            BY USING THIS STUFF!!! It doesn't make the oil go away! It just makes sure that it doesn't
                            float to the surface and ruins photo's of the beaches!!!   It's highly TOXIC, creates CANCER
                            and causes MUTAGENIC CHANGES IN MARINE LIFE!!! " ( Source )
          BP has been told by EPA to change dispersants.   BP has refused. (5/22/2010)
         
                                   BP Using Dispersants In Gulf Banned In U.K. For Being too toxic ...

Corexit: Lethal Aerial Dispersant Endangers Crews                                      BP refuses FDA Order      Not to Use Its Toxic Dispersant

"The heavy reliance on chemical dispersants to break up the spill has raised increasing concern among scientists
and environmentalists. More than 600,000 gallons of chemicals have been sprayed on the surface of the Gulf with
another 55,000 injected directly into the oil billowing out of the ocean floor.

"Scientists say the chemicals could be doing more for the oil company's PR, than the overall clean-up of the Gulf.
The chemicals that break up the oil in small droplets help prevent giant tides of oil washing up on shore, with their
disturbing images of oil-encrusted wildlife.

"But they are carcinogenic, mutagenic, and highly toxic, and it is unclear how much damage they are causing
to marine life in deep water – a risk acknowledged by the EPA chief, Lisa Jackson.

"Corexit has never been used in such high quantities before, Jackson told Congress earlier this week.
"There has been a real reliance on them, maybe more than anybody thought would ever happen."
Jackson said. She added: "I'm amazed by how little science there is on the issue."
         ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/20/gulf-oil-spill-chemical-dispersant )

                               
                         The crew of a Basler BT-67 fixed wing aircraft release oil dispersant over an oil discharge
                                 from the mobile offshore drilling unit, Deepwater Horizon, off the shore of Louisiana,
                                May 5, 2010. Photograph: Ho/Reuters
|
           5) Skimming 3,000 barrels a day from surface that it can resell.

             Will any of these do the job?   "They're clearly out of ideas", says Dwayne Spradlin,
             CEO of InnoCentive Inc., which has created an online network of experts to
             solve environmental problems.    

            Is Obama Helping BP Avoid Paying Full Damages?

                 Fishermen for shrimps and crabs in the Gulf are out of work.
              Hotels and restaurants for five hundred miles along the Gulf may not
              survive.   They have no much less or no money coming in.  Because of
              the oil spill and the toxic dispersant used, they will lose their normal
              livelihoods for years and years. Are they expected to suffer in silence and
              without a champion of their cause?  What is Obama doing to make sure
              they start getting money immediately from British Petroleum?
      
                      Obama is doing nothing!   Obama got $71,000 from BP in the
             last two years as campaign contribution-bribes, much more than
             any other American politician.    Obama has communicated that
             he favored raising the cap on liability for damage claims in oil spills
             from a measly $75 million to $10 billion.  This is entirely inadequate.
             Obama knows fulls well that the government's own predictions of
             years of job losses and destruction of the gulf ecology are running
            up the cost to at least a $1 trillion.  Obama knows what he should
            do.  He should immediately seize all BP assets, before they are
            hidden.  He should nationalize BP.   This is the only way the US
            tax payer and the poor working people of the Gulf are not wiped out.
           Obama is only listening to his BP buds, at this stage.
                                         

    
          
          
               Conclusion:
       Obama Is Either A Very Slow Learner or A TOTAL Puppet
               of America's Biggest Corporate Criminals!

                          "Today, On the Today show on CBS, the U.S. Coastguard threatened
                          to have the camera crew and reporter arreasted if the didn,t stop filming
                          the thick black oil coming on shore along the coast of Miss and Bama.
                          Two BP officals were on the U.S. cutter instructing the coastguard
                          what to say. I guess this will sit well with you to have the U.S. coastguard
                          being commanded by BP. " (Source)

                          "Local animal rescue workers have volunteered to help treat birds
                          affected by the slick and to collect data that would also be used to help
                          calculate penalties for the spill. But federal officials have told the volunteers
                           that the work must be done by a company hired by BP." 
                           ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/earth/21conflict.html      )

                          
              His Military "Experts" have given him the Afghanistan Quagmire.
              Another Trillion Dollars Wasted.

              His Wall Street "Experts" (Geithner, Summers and Blankfein) have made
              themselves and their cronies rich at the expense of Main Street America.

              His Private Health Insurance "Experts" are pushing up
             premiums and there is no competition from a Public Option.