Night view of Deep Water Horizon site in Gulf

This image needs some explaining. It was taken from the window of Delta Flight 1220 about midnight July 21, almost an hour after taking off from Fort Lauderdale en route to Las Vegas. Looking down at the blank scene below, I gradually started seeing widely spaced yellow lights come into view. They are flares burning off gas, I surmised. Then this cluster of colored lights came into view. It must be the site of the oil catastrophe, and that's the fleet of vessels drilling and capturing and supervising in the cleanup effort.

Out came the camera. A couple clicks, and this is the clearest and least jiggled of the images shot through the thick airliner window. 

After landing in Las Vegas I asked the pilot if we had flown over the site, and he confirmed we had. Yes, the cluster of lights was the fleet of ships, he said, and during the day you can see the fleet of skimmers and other vessels working the cleanup.

So, there you are.

A landslide is available to us Dems if we work hard toward November

Check out the Gallup polling that shows what the potential is when a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president manage a success or two: suddenly a six-point lead, where before the picture looked gloomy.

Imagine the polls if President Obama's cautious handling of the BP oil disaster finally results in a secure shutdown of the well. This is within reach -- keep fingers crossed to prevent the laws of physics and geology from combining in a new explosion of the well. Polls now may show the public is dubious about the president's handling of the crisis. That will change bigtime when the well is capped.

Our job is to remain committed to work hard, and to avoid overly pessimistic moods.

FL-25: Joe Garcia rips David Rivera on offshore oil drilling

"Imagine if David Rivera had his way."

That's a little quote from Joe Garcia in a news conference yesterday about the BP oil spill. Check out the whole story on the Joe Garcia blog, which should be on your favorites menu.

You see, Rivera, who's the likely Republican candidate against Joe Garcia in US House District FL-25, was eager to have drilling for oil three miles from Florida's beaches. So, yes, stretch your mind and imagine a rig blowup and the oil hitting the beach in a few hours. Right here. Or over in Fort Myers where Aunt Molly retired, or Pensacola where your nephew is in the Navy. And anywhere in Florida where your economic future is vulnerable to globs of oil.

What to think about the Republicans who want to apologize to BP

This morning through the luck of the TV remote I happened to turn on CNN as the House hearings on the oil spill were under way. Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California ripped into BP CEO Tony Hayward for not having been aware of the problems developing in the too-deep well. And then Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, saying he was speaking only for himself and not for the Republican Party, said he was ashamed of what had emerged from the White House the day before. He called it a "shakedown" of a fine private company.

Wow, I thought, what's he talking about? Surely not BP? But yes, that's what he meant. That President Obama, by getting BP to set aside $20 billion for damage claims, was "shaking down" the company that is soiling the environment like nothing before.

Then it turned out that he was speaking for the Republican Party. They all said the same thing.

What a crowd of slaves to the oil dollar! In the land of Big Oil, the Republicans are the bottom of the barrel. Down where Karl Rove turns out the talking points.

 So it was good a few hours later to get an email from OFA saying it was time to put our names down as on the other side. Here's the link. http://my.barackobama.com/NoApologies-auto 

Please go and add your name.

Prepare for belly-laughs

This isn't fair at all to BP.



Not fair at all to BP, and Halliburton, well, could they really have made it worse?

Obama transcript in the Oil Spill. Read it and be grateful the other isn't president

This remarkable document came to me by email from the White House press office because I'm a registered blogger and the White House is much more open that it was when Dick Cheney met with the oil kings to decide energy policy. Your blogger gets things like this a lot. Reading this transcript for the second time, however, made me think how grateful I am that Barack Obama is the president, and not John McCain or George W. Bush. We have a president who understands and takes things forward, and lets people talk about the right amount. 


My only comment/piece of advice at this point is: As much as we want to help the people of the Gulf coast, we have to avoid futility. Darn, they may want to stay for the sixth generation now, but their home may be about to be gooed up by oil for years to come. We have to avoid futile efforts that won't work. This will be a hard judgment call, and there's another reason I'm grateful that we have a wise man as president now, and not some martinet neocon.


Read and enjoy the result of your electoral labors:

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN CONVERSATION WITH LOCAL RESIDENTS

Camardelle’s Live Bait and Boiled Seafood
Grand Isle, Louisiana

    THE PRESIDENT:  Everybody knows the Mayor.  The Mayor has gathered up a group of local businesspeople.  Butch, for example, owns a marina; Terry, a shrimp boat; Floyd, oyster fisherman; and Patti has a convenience store; Chris is the owner of this bait shop.
    And so we were just talking about the economic impact that this has had.  And just to give you a sense of perspective -- Terry has been shrimping out here for 46 years.  His grandfather did it before him.  And right now things are completely shut off for him.

Floyd, he leases the oyster beds from the state.  The state now, obviously, and properly so, has said he can't be pulling seafood out of these waters right now.  He’s got oil that's starting to seep in into these oyster beds where he’s got leases and, as a consequence, Floyd is trying to figure out how long this damage is going to last.

FLOYD LASSEIGNE:  I'm a fourth generation, and I've got a son who is a fifth generation, so we've been -- somebody lease has been -- been in the family for 100 years.

THE PRESIDENT:  Butch was talking about the marina and making the point that these three, four months are basically when all the business comes down.  And normally all his slips would be full right now -- sounds like about only a third of them are full and it may get worse from there.

BUTCH GASPARD:  Our charter boat guys are hurting real bad, too, because all the charter boat business is shut down.  They make a living off of taking people out fishing.

THE PRESIDENT:  So right now, Butch isn’t taking a salary so he can pay his employees, but he doesn’t know how long that's going to last.

Then you’ve got Patti, who owns a convenient store.  Obviously that store is dependent on these guys -- the boats coming in, filling up with gas, buying ice, buying soft drinks.  So she’s down 85 percent on her business right now.

So this is just a sampling of what’s happening out here.  And part of what we talked about was what we can do to prevent oil from coming into these areas; part of what we talked about is -- in terms of the relief effort -- can we deploy folks who’ve got boats here to help save their livelihoods right where they are, as opposed to having to go to other places.  And so I'm going to ask Admiral Allen to make sure that he’s looking at where people are being deployed, where vessels are being deployed, to make sure the people who know the waters best end up being hired there.

And the final thing is we've got to talk about -- what we talked about up in New Orleans -- which is are we making sure that claims are being processed effectively.  And right now, after that initial $5,000 check that BP wrote, the claim center has been taking in claims, but it sounds, based on what I'm hearing, that there’s a lot of process but not much actual action.  And so we're going to see if we can do something better on that.

But the main point I think I want to make -- and, Mayor, feel free to chime in on this -- is these are communities that have had a way of life for generations, and what people are concerned about right now is not just the damage done in the short term -- because these are some tough folks.  They’ve been through hurricanes and --

VOICE:  Low prices.

THE PRESIDENT:  -- low prices --

VOICE:  High cost of fuel.

THE PRESIDENT:  Terry was talking about how the walls stay up on a building around here; a hurricane comes, you wash out the mud and a week later everybody is back in business.  So these are folks who are used to hardship and know how to deal with it.  But what they’re concerned about right now is, is this going to have a lasting impact that they can't recover from.  And that's why Thad and the rest of the federal team is so committed to making sure that everything that can be done will be done.

This is going to be bad, no matter what we do.  But we can hopefully minimize the damage, but it requires good coordination between the state, federal and local; and it requires BP to make sure that, as I said up in New Orleans, folks aren’t getting nickled-and-dimed and that we're doing what we need to do early to prevent the worst-case scenario from happening later.

So, Mr. Mayor, anything you want to add?

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  Well, again, the main concern is to block these five passes that we talked about.  The barges are available, Admiral, right there all along the coast, from Venice to Harvey Canal, all the way back to Homer. They’re standing by, and hopefully we can get the President to get on BP -- between both of you guys -- so we can put some barges there temporary to block these passes so we can save Claiborne Parish, LaFourche Parish, St. Charles Parish, Orleans Parish, Jefferson Parish, Plaquemines Parish.  And Jefferson Parish, where we live at -- if we can block them five passes right now, these fishermen can tell you that we can save -- continue to save the rest of the 2 million acres of oysters.

We have $2 billion worth of seafood that comes out behind me, right in this estuary -- $2 billion worth.  We have a billion dollars of recreational license -- recreational fishing -- that generates to the marinas, to all the stores, all the way across Louisiana.  But these guys -- this woman here with the convenience store, if we lose the estuaries in the back, we're history.  And they’ll tell you that.

We're born and raised -- our grandfathers, grandmothers.  We made a living right here behind us.  There’s no reason why this shrimp boat should be tied up, it don’t have skimmers on it, to make sure we can block the oil until we put these booms.  And I'm asking you to --

THE PRESIDENT:  To go to work.  Last week when I was talking to the Mayor, he started choking up just talking about the fact that out of his own pocket he was having to provide some help and some loans to his buddies, to fishermen, folks in the area.  That's what we should be able to prevent.  There’s oil washing in, but people can help each other.  And the company that's responsible can make sure that it’s responding quickly and effectively.

And when the Mayor told me that story it was, I think, an example of what’s happening all across this Gulf Coast.  And it’s going to be multiplied not just in Louisiana, but in Alabama, in Mississippi, in Florida.  There are small communities like this all across the Gulf and they’ve got to make sure that their voice is being heard day in, day out.

And I know that they’ve got a fierce advocate in Thad Allen.  But I wanted you to know that behind Thad Allen stands the President of the United States.

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  And like I said, since the last time you’ve been here, the Coast Guard is unbelievable.  Admiral, I want you to know that.  You guys are really working 24 hours for us.  And you did push BP.  And, like I said, I'm very emotional because I'm still giving -- I'm not going to cut the water off, I'm not going to cut the electricity off, and I'm not going to cut the gas off.  I have one of the businesses right now that has a $5,200 electricity bill, and I'm calling energy to make sure not to cut him off.

When these businesspeople come up to you and say it’s time to help, it’s not easy.  And Patti can tell you -- the night before last I told her that I'm going to keep you strong, I'm going the try to bring you more business.  Butch calls me, telling me we need more boats, get some vessel of opportunities. He’s fighting to save his oysters.  I'm trying to keep Grand Isle alive, to try to get tours.  I opened the beach Memorial Sunday at 3:00 p.m. -- people were calling me.  So the marinas can sell a towel so these young kids can lay on the beach.

And watching oil come across the shore -- some people think I'm better than God, you know.  That's how serious this is.  And they’ll tell you, I live right down the street.  I've been averaging two hours of sleep, just going in and looking at the ceiling fan and wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow, and praying to God that no more oil comes on the beach.

So, like Terry said earlier, his wife is sick.  I bring seven people a day to -- New Orleans in a van, to cross that long bridge you crossed, and putting gas in the truck to make sure that we can keep the help.  And we help each other.  And we don't have no money, don't matter.  We help each other.  That's what we do.


THE PRESIDENT:  Well, that's supposed to be what the entire United States does, is helping each other.

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  Exactly.

TERRY VEGAS:  We're not bitter at the oil companies for what’s happening. We're just bitter at those that cut the corners and cause the havoc that we're having right now.

VOICE:  It’s not getting cleaned up fast enough.

VOICE:  -- the oil company down here and we enjoy the business.  We support them.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think the point with the oil companies is they’ve got to support you the same way you support them.  And they’ve got to make sure that -- because there are a lot of folks in the oil business who do the right thing and who aren’t cutting corners.  We've just got to make sure that we find out what happened and that those who are responsible are held responsible; that we fix whatever is wrong.  We're still going to need the oil production, but we've got to make sure that we do it in the right way, because we just can't have a situation like this happen again.

VOICE:  Can't have that happen all the time,, no.

VOICE:  Have to follow the rules.

VOICE:  Just tell the truth.

VOICE:  From day one they lied to us -- BP.  They said 1,000 barrels a day, then said it’s 2,000 -- put the tube in there, it was 5,000 -- now it’s up to 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.  Just tell the people the truth, you know.  That's all we want.

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  Like I said, the biggest shrimp dock in America is right here in Grand Isle.  It’s Blanche’s Seafood.  And he’s completely shut down.  They’ll tell you, the boats are tied up.  How many boats does he have right now -- about 100, close to 100 boats just tied up.  And you’ve got the Vietnamese families, you’ve got the true Cajun people here, and they’re just sitting on the deck of the boat and just waiting on the vessel of opportunity.

And I want to respect the Admiral and BP, where they try.  It’s just since you left, they’ve made a big change.  Since you came to me, you made a big change and we support you for that.  But we just worry.  You hear us here and we worry.  And we don't know what’s going to happen tomorrow.  And that's why we depend on you -- both of you guys -- to make sure that -- and you heard them today.  We don't want to be on food stamps -- none of my people -- we want to just untie the boat, be able to see your two daughters right here and kiss them in the evening and Daddy’s going to work.
                       END

Opinion on the oil spill and the human casualties. Put yours in the comments

 This is a submitted comment by a dear person who is also fierce:

There are two men who should not pass “Go” nor collect $200; but who should go directly to jail.  They are Transocean Chief Executive Steven Newman and BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward.  Their crime is Manslaughter (of 11 rig workers): “the unlawful killing of a human being without malice or premeditation, either expressed or implied; distinguished from murder, which requires malicious intent.” When they post bail re these accusations, they should immediately be arrested again for perpetrating an environmental crime (“any deliberate act or omission leading to degradation of the environment and resulting into harmful effects on human beings...”  And they should be held in jail, without the right of habeas corpus, as was done to Juan Padilla.

Charlotte Klieman

Charlotte Klieman is a DEC member

Others who wish to publish an opinion on the BP oil spill are encouraged to use the comment button below this post and let it run on.

FL-25: Who was in the Drill Baby Drill camp? David Rivera. Pin it on him, Joe

There's a petition to sign at JoeGarcia2010.com to keep offshore oil drilling away from Florida. I've signed. Have you?



Further from your blogger's brainstorming:

We have to accept that the Gulf of Mexico is going to be a disaster for quite a while. It has been a source of much oil for a long long time and there also were a lot of oil spills over the years. We should not be surprised or get desperate when there is a really big oil spill. This was in the cards and we knew it. It's why there was a
debate over whether to drill in more difficult areas such as much deeper water. Obama can win over reasonable people with bold and smart moves. We all have to suck it up, shake our fingers at the whiners, and clean up as fast as possible. BP can go bankrupt and out of business if necessary. Let's put the RISK in risk for big business.

The president should start a fast study on new livelihoods for coastal people who must move to escape unhealthy oily environment and finance the project in a way related to royalty revenue from oil leases.

Take a dive with BP's spill -- Yuk

Thanks to RepowerAmerica, Al Gore in action on the internet he invented, for tipping me to this new view of the gush.