Cross-Purposes. Last nite's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC showed archival footage of several fireboats spraying tons and tons of water onto the listing oil-drilling platform over the underwater spill that is pouring millions of gallons of crude oil onto the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. (The platform had not yet sunk to the bottom of the Gulf.) Why on Earth would anyone put out an oil fire that prevented spilled oil from reaching the water? Are they insane?
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Later, officials talked about setting fire to oil that did get into the water. Why didn't they just let the fire on the platform continue as long as it could?
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British Petroleum — and why is BRITISH Petroleum allowed to drill in U.S. coastal waters, as risks harm to Americans and the environment of the United States? — is now deploying containment "domes" (polygonal, however, rather than round) over the leaking oil, from the top of which pipes would carry the oil onto tanker ships for safe removal from the area. Those structures had to be specially built. Question: why aren't there pre-built containment domes already on hand near every offshore-drilling area, worldwide? Doesn't anybody believe in the old advice, "Plan Ahead"?
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,397 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM