This week’s stuff we can’t stop from pouring out of the Earth’s crust is … oil! And like that Icelandic volcano, the Gulf oil spill is one of those disasters you hear about and then forget and then it keeps popping up in the news again and suddenly it’s UH OH NO WAY TO STOP THIS. The British Petroleum-leased rig exploded on April 20, and eleven workers were presumably killed in the blast. Every day since, some 42,000 gallons of crude oil have poured out of the hole at the end of the 5,000-foot-long pipe. But now, BP says the well is spewing more than 200,000 gallons per day. If the company can’t stop the spill, the Department of Defense will take over. The Coast Guard has already begun burning the oil off the sea’s surface. At least the sheets of oil rolling onto the Louisiana coastline this morning are the “color and texture of iced tea.” Mmm, tea! America loves tea. [New York Times/Wall Street Journal]- Hugo Chavez bravely called up the Remember the 28th of April revolutionary social-networking guard and will soon win Twitter back from the capitalist running dog-pigs in Venezuela who use Twitter all the time in opposition of Hugo Chavez, who has just learned to Twitter. Viva la twat! [BBC News]
- Highlights of Laura Bush’s new book include that one time when she killed her high-school boyfriend and quit believing in God, and that other time in Germany a couple years ago when she thought somebody poisoned George W. with the stomach flu. Sorry we skipped this yesterday, on purpose. [Guardian]
IT'S MORNING IN AMERICA
April 29, 2010
Last of Earth’s Oil Spilling Into Gulf of Mexico, To Be Burned
Previous post: Republican Leadership Budges, HMM?
Next post: Old-Man Monster Really Did Eat People In DC
{ 68 comments }
Spill, Baby, Spill.
Americans don’t like tea — Brits like tea. Once Americans figure out how to mate tea out of bacon, then Americans will like tea.
Bye, bye, black birds; blackened shrimps; etc, etc.
As a West Coastie Floridian, I can’t even snark about this. I’m infuriated that we drill ANYWHERE in the Gulf Coast.
By “the DoD takes over,” I presume you mean we start bombing Britain.
[re=566743]Cranky Little Camperette[/re]: But a number of them sure love their tea bags.
love that anecdote about when the bushes all had the shits in germany! even presidents get diarrhea.
Mmm. Black gold. Texas tea. Clean coal technology. All of the above, baby.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer state.
DRILL BABY DRILL!!!
Damn… I read the alt-text on the photo after my post. So un-original…
That’s it. I’m also boycotting Germany now for not doing a proper job of it.
And another thing: down here on the Gulf Coast, that so-called “iced tea” is pronounced “ass tea,” and it comes in two forms — sweet and unsweet. Three guesses which kind is preferred by most of the snaggletoothed lard-asses in the region. Real Americans like choice. Except about baby-killing.
[re=566746]Mahousu[/re]: Well I’m pretty sure this counts as chemical warfare inflicted by BP (they like to call it beyond petroleum these days, but we know it’s British Petro), so I think the proper response is Nuke Britian, even under Hopey’s new rules, since Britian does have it’s own nukes, I think it’s an allowed response to this henious violation of the Geneva Convention.
Hey, isn’t it called the “Gulf of Mexico”, can’t be our problem. Excuse me while I stick my fingers in my ears and sing loudly.
That nyt article is almost as depressing as the sidebar about the greenday musical.
[re=566755]Whitey[/re]: Somehow, i have a feeling that the sludge lapping Louisiana really DOES have the consistency and taste of “ass tea”. So it’s all good for you down there in the Gulf Coast.
[re=566755]Whitey[/re]: South of the Mason-Dixon Line, isn’t “sweet tea” the default liquid delivered when you ask for “ass tea”?
DUCK SOUP: Ok so here’s what we do America. First we let that slick get way up into our cracks and crev-ah-ses of our coast land, thus getting all the ducks, gooses, and sea birds all oily.
Then we bring in an honorary guest, like say the last president, to light it all up. Perhaps he could ignite one of his policy making farts to begin the chain reaction. Then sit back and watch those birds roast. Scoop the charred carcasses from the sea and feed them to the homeless with hobo beans. Two problems solved: hungering people and our nations energy crisises. The end. (More Old Crow and Pabst please.)
It somehow seems fitting that George Sr. would throw up on the Japanese and that George Jr. would just get a case of the runs.
[re=566755]Whitey[/re]: Yep, and at various frugal fat person BBQ restaurants, they make it in a plastic garbage can and stir it with a boat oar. The garbage can has a bunghole, from which the “swayt tay” is poured into glorified big gulp cups.
[re=566760]V572625694[/re]:
We need a better demarkation than the Mason-Dixon Line, which runs between Maryland and Pennsylvania. Sure, we have our issues in Maryland, but they tend to be different than those of states further south.
Sweet tea is an abomination. Down in parts of the Carolinas, they boil the darn sugar into the water to get it even sweeter. Other parts of the South, it tends to just be mixed in.
[re=566742]memzilla[/re]: Imagine a repug majority in Congress and VP Grifter! There would be oil rigs every 1000 ft on every coast and oil spills every week.
Pundits like George Will would be justifying the benefits of oily salt-water, the potential positive impact on the fishing industry and the zingy flavor it would give tuna (see Will’s idiotic WaPo column where he makes excuses for that Arizonian unconstitutional cluster fuck).
So, am I the only one who thinks that if the states around and near the gulf coast think drilling for oil there is such a goddamned good idea, then maybe they should suck it up and take it when the resulting oil spills threaten evironmental devastation along their coastlines, instead of then dumping all the pollution into the commons they share with the rest of us, who think it’s a stupid idea and we should move away from fossil fuels in general?
Like, if you guys want to ruin your own local environments, fucking whatever. But if you’re going to burn that shit and ruin my atmosphere, because you guys can’t deal with the consequences of your own shitty policies, then you guys are just a bunch of fucking pricks.
Bush got food poisoning during a meeting with foreign leaders? I suspect career US diplomats, in addition to the foreign leaders.
Oh Pro Life Pro White Xtian GOD forbid that oil companies fuck up and spills the precious precious oil into something called the invironmint. Sarah Palin assured me via Facebook that “oil companies are pure and 150 gajillion persent not inkompetent or accident prone or corrupt or stewpid” and Sarah Palin is never rong.
Don’t worry, this is a cunning hurricane prevention plan, I just know it.
On Laura Bush’s new book:
- Typical of the Bushes. If someone gets sick traveling, it MUST be poisoning. Couldn’t just be an illness. Introduce that bunch to Occam’s Razor, please.
- She makes a snotty comment in the book about a prominent reporter displaying in her home bathroom PAPER hand towels swiped from the White House. Really, Laura? You’re worried about where the paper towels ended up?
- People called her husband names? Boo hoo. Her husband invaded Iraq under false pretenses and dropped those people from one kind of hell into another. The least he deserves is to be called names.
[re=566770]mumblyjoe[/re]: Yeah okay, they have the lick the oil off the dead seagulls to get enough to fuel their Hummers, but windmills off Cape Cod, that’s different!
[re=566768]Terry[/re]: Maryland gave the nation the gift of Michael Steele, among its other issues. And disgraced Veep Agnew. And Marvin Mandell.
[re=566768]Terry[/re]: Mildly sweet tea is fine, especially with a little mint, but this is rarely seen in commercial establishments. The liquid-syrup teeth-fuzzing material to which I believe you refer is indeed an abomination.
Tea-baggers claiming that the oil leak was somehow caused by Demon Crats opposed to oil-drilling rigs (if God didn’t want us to drill for oil off the Gulf Coast, why did he put the oil there?) in 3…2…1…
[re=566777]Terry[/re]: She makes a snotty comment in the book about a prominent reporter displaying in her home bathroom PAPER hand towels swiped from the White House.
Well, someone knows how to hold a grudge.
Unfortunately it’s not in the Guardian article, but the cover of Laura’s book is seriously creepy. She’s got this inhuman grin and glaring eyes that make her look almost just like the Joker when he’s wearing make-up for a human skin tone.
The Gulf Coast spill may be sad; but we need that precious oil, because it’s not like we have a better energy source that’s the ultimate source of the power in the oil shining on us for half of every day or anything.
[re=566768]Terry[/re]: It’s not just the sweet part that’s the problem; tea is hot, if you serve it cold I’m not sure what it should be called but it’s not tea.
Oh, and: http://www.theonion.com/articles/masondixon-line-renamed-ihopwaffle-house-line,8909/
Now, if only someone in Louisiana had a large supply of Depends undergarments, they would be prepared to soak up those messy spills.
(I refuse to be drawn on the subject of ice tea. Try living in 95 degree heat without air conditioning and then enjoy wonderful hot tea for a few seasons. You will need both calories and cooling. (Oh, wait… you will get the chance now that the Weather Channel and Exxon have engineered global warming.)
We threw tea in the water to protest the British. The British Petroleum folks are turning our oceans tea colored.
Ass tea, the house wahn of the South.
[re=566779]V572625694[/re]: Honestly, it’s not like wind farms are any worse eyesores than oil rigs, and at least with coastal wind farms, the worst thing you’re going to spill all over the coastline is Siemans.
[re=566771]WadISay[/re]: That would make sense. Europeans have centuries of experience with poisoning. Our career diplomats couldn’t possibly have done the job right.
Drill Baby Drill. No wait, Burn Baby Burn. Maybe if this was the Gulf of Alaska, we might get a reasoned response from Sarah SnowBilly. Wasn’t BP under their last CEO deversifying and reducing its stake in Petro, but as soon as he left, it was back to Drill Baby Drill. How’s that working out for you BP? I have purchased my last gallon of BP-AMOCO. Where are the Tea Baggers in this Arizona Dustup. I thought they were warning the Fed Coats are comin’. Well they have arrived in ‘Zona, stopping anybody they please and demanding Official Papers. Come on TB’s grab your signs and lets march to Phoenix.
[re=566803]mumblyjoe[/re]: The funny thing, or not funny thing, is the Ted Kennedy was the major road block on the wind farm off Cape Cod. Classic NIMBY thing….didn’t like the view and how it might impact sailing. Proponents of the wind farm claim it will provide 75-percent of the power for Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard…that’s about the same amount of energy produced by a medium-sized coal fired plant. So while I believe Ted Kennedy was responsible for many great things in the country, on wind farms…not so good.
[re=566770]mumblyjoe[/re]: Fuck you! We in Florida have fought long and hard to keep drilling out of our waters. But now we are endangered (tourism, shrimping, fishing) by the product of drilling in state waters we can’t control.
This is a disaster the working people of Louisiana’s coastal area will endure the brunt of for likely some time.
Drill Baby Drill is a catchy slogan until your shrimp boat is used for oil clean up instead of a livelihood. Sarah Palin should bring her pompous ass down to the coast and wade into the tea colored clusterfuck her and her ilk promote through blind ignorance.
I don’t see the problem with the “spill”. We pump up oil so we can burn it and get things all lubed up with it. This just does it more and faster. Which is the American Way.
Geez, not to be a nudge or anything, but why the heck would you let someone put a deep-water oil rig off your coastline without first checking to see that they had a plausible Plan B in the event of a leak? Am I being a nudge here? I don’t think “Setting the gulf on fire” is a good Plan B, just to be clear.
That sad duck photo is begging for the Blingee treatment. Also.
[re=566821]snideinplainsight[/re]: You’re right. Setting the gulf on fire is not a good Plan B. It’s an awesome Plan B. Fire is awesome. The wildlife really dig fire. What could possibly go wrong? Oh. That. Well, never mind…
[re=566821]snideinplainsight[/re]: This is what I don’t get. It’s like they had absolutely NO plan in case of a major accident like what occurred. I know a little something about Risk Management planning: there should have been plans, contingencies, and backup systems in place for something like this. These assholes look totally caught by surprise.
Oh, hey, just off the news ‘wires’ –
Exxon Profit Up 38% as Oil Prices Rise
[re=566779]V572625694[/re]:
“Maryland gave the nation the gift of Michael Steele, among its other issues. And disgraced Veep Agnew. And Marvin Mandell.”
Yep, we have our issues. I’d argue, however, that Mandell doesn’t belong in with those two. He was sort-of-kind-of-maybe involved with a racetrack (Laurel, iirc) or maybe it was just his friends.
As an Alaskan, it’s impossible to laugh at this. In fact, reading the above made me cry.
So I’ll just go cheer myself up now by imagining Palin and BP and Exxon management being ignited and fried in a substance the color and texture of iced tea.
BP Disaster Plan:
1. Set oil spill aflame.
2. Tow garbage scows to edge of flame.
3. Hired cheap Brown labor tosses garbage into flames.
4. Browns get hair sat aflame.
5. Browns collect Workers Comp & get medical care & check for life.
6. No more welfare in Amerika for Browns.
7. Win-win.
8. All brutally fire scarred Brown victims excused from presenting papers to Arizona Gestapo.
9. Win-win-win.
10. Burn Baby Burn.
11. The end.
[re=566768]Terry[/re]: As an adoptive southerner when it comes to my Ass Tea, I demand a retraction, or satisfaction. Admit the superiority of hot brewed sweet tea(preferably Luzianne brand) or we shall duel at high noon. I’ll be late because of Atlanta traffic, but you get the idea.
BP Corporate officers…. Shred Baby Shred!! Wonder how many safety violations that rig had toted up….
Take the entire “Drill, Baby, Drill” crowd, with their personal toothbrush (they don’t use it anyway), and put them to work cleaning up the oil spill once it makes landfall.
Obviously the poisoning was a professional job. Deceptively made to look like a common stomach flu.
This oil slick has to hit land. It needs to be a big enough catastrophe that Americans wake the fuck up and start giving a shit about the environment. If this spill gets contained out at sea nothing will change and the drill baby drill crowd wins.
As Homer Simpson said: “It’ll be OK honey, there’s lots more oil where that came from”
true fact…
The Slate “News Explainer” is now answering the question: “Can we still use all that oil spilled into the Gulf?” Answer, yes! We just have to “skim” it all up first. Next up from Slate, “Oil spills, are they actually good for the planet?”
“…and texture of iced tea”?? What, pray tell, is the “texture” of iced tea?
[re=566898]GOPCrusher[/re]: I am fully supportive of this plan. Bachmann Palin Overdrill can take the lead.
Here’s a news flash for some of you; the PB rig is in Federal Waters. Neither Louisiana nor Alabama got to rule on its deployment or will get any benefit from it. We just get to clean up the mess.
Archconservitive Bob Reily, Governor of Alabama, woke up yesterday and actually visited the coast. He pretended to be concerned for an hour before retuning to Montgomery. Seems like a rig blew up a week ago and some oil (Like several millon gallons) may wash up on the beach.
This is going to do far more damage to the coast than Katrina and the government doesn’t give a shit. Same attitude that some Wonketeers have, we deserve it.
Sorry to rant, we expect to embrace the oil this weekend.
[re=566847]libwakman[/re]: 12. Profit!
[re=567186]bamaboy[/re]: *snark off* That sucks, dude, sorry to hear that. No matter how one feels about offshore oil drilling, it is a catastrophe when this stuff gets spilled in our oceans and washed ashore, and the states that have to deal with it do not deserve it, no matter their stance on the subject. Louisiana and Alabama’s coastlines are precious resources and should be protected.
[re=567055]One Yield Regular[/re]: *snark on* Santorum.
Oh man. They can smell oil fumes from the French Quarter. There’s no way to make this funny. All you can eat at the Acme Oyster Bar for the foreseeable future, I guess.
[re=567324]notreallyhelping[/re]: fuck it. seriously. I used to live in Maryland when they had mighty fine oysters. the last time I was there all the oysters were flown in from Louisiana. because of the Chesapeake Bay pollution and all. Now this fucked up nightmare of oil spilling in the Gulf forever and ever.
Now who is going to be able to make any decent gumbo? It is a crime against humanity, thats what it is pure and simple.
I’m in New Orleans; currently there’s no smell. There was this afternoon, it smelled like diesel fuel mixed with febreeze. My initial thought was that all the chemical plants NW of NOLA were venting all their toxic shit, knowing that everyone would think it was the spill. It probably was the spill though. God, we are so fucked if that shit hit the wetlands … it cannot be cleaned up if it gets in there – it will poison it more or less permanently. Louisiana has very little sand beaches at all, most of it is grass and mud that gradually becomes the Gulf. It will be unbelievably catastrophic.
Most Americans dont have the foggiest idea of where their food comes from, so when the price of shrimp, etc., goes up in a few months, there’ll be an enormous conspiracy theory involving Arab terrorists, Zionists, the Illuminati, anything but lust for petroleum in the USA.
[re=566828]mumblyjoe[/re]: Aaaand done.
[re=567679]mumblyjoe[/re]: blarg, dead link. done
http://tinyurl.com/22whx29
My favorite evangelist, Bro. Stair, was having a lot of fun speculating about this, at noon today. Terrorism! North Korean? Nuclear War next? End of the World for sure! Everyone goes to Hell except for Stair and a couple buddies!
Comments on this entry are closed.