konane's Blog

Suggest reading the entire article which is a good read ..... click the article title which is permalinked.

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Tuesday, June 22. 2010

Posted by Karl Denninger in Politics at 08:52

Source The Market Ticker

"The Rats Are Going Swimming

As I noted last night on Blogtalk in response to a question (the last 15 minutes or so of the show) the Feral Government is increasingly being exposed as a pack of animals - cornered animals.

Recognition that The Feral Government has run the ship not aground but rather into an iceberg is rapidly spreading throughout the second-level administration people - along with firms and individuals who are in some way dependent on it.

The inevitable "rats jumping from a sinking ship" process has begun

, starting with Peter Orszag, Obama's "budget director":

Orszag, 41, considered leaving his post as director of the Office of Management and Budget in April and stayed on after an appeal from the president, the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Orszag’s decision to leave in July will accelerate the process of picking a successor. ............."

"......... Then there's this:

A band of McChrystal’s profane, irreverent aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

McChrystal himself is described by an aide as “disappointed” in his first Oval Office meeting with an unprepared President Barack Obama. The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start.

It includes a list of administration figures said to back McChrystal, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and puts Biden at the top of a list of those who don’t.

The article claims McChrystal has seized control of the war “by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House.”

Why that's positively revolting! ......"

http://market-ticker.org/archives/2434-The-Rats-Are-Going-Swimming.html

Posted by Karl Denninger in Corruption at 21:17

Source The Market Ticker 

"God's Work? Luck? Or Lawbreaking?

One has to wonder about the BP thing....

It seems incomprehensible that the president and other members of the administration still have jobs when it is now being reported that the federal government was apprised by BP on February 13 that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil and natural gas into the ocean floor.

In fact, according to documents in the administration's possession, BP was fighting large cracks at the base of the well for roughly ten days in early February. 

Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig's fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, "They <snip> near blew up the rig."

Hmmm....

Now let's see.... there was no public dissemination of this information, was there?  Well, no.

And yet we know that:

According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter.

Really.....

We also know that:

Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.

The latter article also says:

There is no suggestion that he acted improperly or had prior knowledge that the company was to face the biggest setback in its history.

Oh really?

Again:

Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig's fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, "They <snip> near blew up the rig."

So here are my questions, which I believe we all deserve answers to:

1. Did Goldman or Mr. Hayward know this?
   
   
2. Did they sell stock with knowledge of material inside information that had not been disseminated to the market?

Just curious, mind you....  "

http://market-ticker.org/archives/2433-Gods-Work-Luck-Or-Lawbreaking.html

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It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.

“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

BP didn’t respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment. The company’s shares rose 22 pence to 359 pence today in London after the company struck a deal with the Obama administration yesterday to establish a $20 billion fund to pay cleanup costs and compensation. BP has lost 45 percent of its market value since the catastrophe.

On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.

‘Cement Squeeze’

The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks.

BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the documents show.

“Most of the time you do a squeeze and then let it dry and you’re done,” said John Wang, an assistant professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. “It dries within a few hours.”

Repeated squeeze attempts are unusual and may indicate rig workers are using the wrong kind of cement, Wang said.

Grappling Engineers

BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward and other top executives were ignorant of the difficulties the company’s engineers were grappling with in the well before the explosion, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said today during a hearing in Washington.

“We could find no evidence that you paid any attention to the tremendous risk BP was taking,” Waxman said as Hayward waited to testify. “There is not a single e-mail or document that you paid the slightest attention to the dangers at this well.”

BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles and exploration chief Andy Inglis “were apparently oblivious to what was happening,” said Waxman, a California Democrat. “BP’s corporate complacency is astonishing.”

In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the spill.

Gas Surges

While gas surges are common in oil drilling, companies have abandoned wells if they determine the risk is too high. When a Gulf well known as Blackbeard threatened to blow out in 2006, Exxon Mobil Corp. shut the project down.

“We don’t proceed if we cannot do so safely,” Exxon Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson told a House Energy and Commerce committee panel on June 15.

On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral service’s drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: “We’re in the midst of a well control situation.”

The incident was a “showstopper,” said Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has consulted with the Interior Department on offshore drilling safety. “They <snip> near blew up the rig.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-17/bp-struggled-with-cracks-in-gulf-well-as-early-as-february-documents-show.html

By Jeff Poor
Wed, 06/16/2010 - 17:28 ET

******VIDEO****** 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2010/06/16/cnbcs-reporter-attacks-obama-creating-his-own-sense-legal-system-over-oil

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For anyone believing the Gulf states would be the only ones impacted by Obama's oil spill, think again. 

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"North America faces years of toxic oil rain from BP oil spill chemical dispersants

June 17, 12:30 PMPolitical Spin ExaminerMaryann Tobin

Source Examiner.com  Atlanta

http://www.examiner.com/x-33986-Political-Spin-Examiner%7ey2010m6d17-North-America-facing-years-of-toxic-rain-from-poisonous-BP-oil-spill-dispersants

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From Steve Quayle, Q-News Photo of the Day.

"OBAMA'S OIL SPILL

By Jon Christian Ryter
June 19, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

"First, let's get this right. While this article will refer to the Gulf oil spill as the BP oil spill, we need to understand from the gitgo, this is Obama's oil spill. He didn't cause it, but he converted it into the crisis it has become for his own personal reasons and his own personal political gain..

By this time, the American people—if they are smart enough to tie their own shoes—have to be asking themselves a question. Or maybe two or three. I know it was a long time ago, but do you remember when the Deepwater Horizon well and platform explosions happened? In case you forgot—April 20, 2010. When White House resident Barack Hussein Obama stopped partying at the Party Palace on Pennsylvania Avenue long enough to decide he had let the BP oil crisis develop long enough that it would require a social progressive "crisis solution," it was May 15. Obama let the BP oil spill dump what is now estimated to be 2.52 million gallons of crude oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico. That's a total of 88,200,000 gallons of oil in 35 days. Yeah, that reeks of a crisis.

Most Americans don't know that three days after the Deepwater Horizon platform sank to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, along with any evidence of what caused the underwater pipeline explosion below the safety cutoff valves, the Dutch government called Obama and offered to loan BP ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and a plan to quickly build sand barriers to protect the marshlands that everyone knew would be affected worst if the seepage was left uncontained and the oil reached the Louisiana coastline. The Heritage Foundation reported that, according to one Dutch newspaper, the European oil companies that offered to help BP said that left to do the job alone they would have contained the oil and completely cleaned all of the oil scum from the Gulf of Mexico in four months. With the help of the US government, the report said, the cleanup would have be complete in three months or less. According to estimates from US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen and BP, the cleanup would take an estimated nine months—after they got the leak plugged.

Again, what the American people don't know is that 13 different countries offered to help clean the oil sludge from the Gulf. And, finally, what the American people don't know is that the Obama Administration turned all of them down. Obama had a crisis in the making and as Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel so aptly told the media during the housing and credit disasters that led to the piling on of over $3 trillion in new taxes on generations of Americans in February, 2009, you "...never let a crisis go to waste."

Had Obama allowed those 13 nations to contain the oil leak and clean up the mess within the first two weeks of the BP oil spill, the marshlands would not be devastated and the tourists would be flocking to the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico this summer. Instead, in the height of tourist season—June 15 until Labor Day—those who usually flock to the Gulf coast will be spending their vacations in North Carolina, or Cape Cod...or in their backyards at home wondering when Obama's next crisis will devastate the industry they work in and end their jobs.

When Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal tried to get the White House to allow willing nations, experienced with oil spill cleanup in the North Sea, to come into the Gulf of Mexico to help, Obama cited the Jones Act as his reason for being forced to decline their offer of help. The Jones Act (also known as the Sailors's Rights Act, Title 46 USC) is a protectionist piece of legislation that mandates that all goods transported by sea between US ports must be transported by US flag ships that are owned by US citizens and whose crews must be at least 3/4 US citizens.

However, the law provides a waiver in times of emergency. President Bush-43 used the waiver twice during his second term. First, in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. He allowed foreign ships to transport oil and natural gas between US ports in the Gulf. In 2006, a waiver was issued so a foreign ship could bring a jack-up rig into Alaska's Cook Inlet. Thus, emergency waivers are common. Which raises the question why Obama declined the offer of help which, had he accepted it, would likely minimized or eliminated the oil spill crisis in the Gulf.

But what should worry the American people most is the new life Obama's oil crisis has pumped into the failed Cap & Trade legislation. Remember Cap & Trade? The Carbon Fuel tax? Cap & Trade or, if you prefer, Cap & Tax, didn't die during the December, 2009 blizzard that greeted the environmental bureaucrats flying into Copenhagen, Denmark to attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (which was initially called the UN Framework Convention on Global Warming) until climate skeptics hacked hundreds of computer files and private emails exchanges between the world's leading global warming "experts," and released the data to the media in Europe on Nov. 9, 2009, less than a month before the Copenhagen Conference. Obama intended, on the last day of the conference, to back door Cap & Trade into the United States by signing what was known as the Copenhagen Protocol. Preparing for the Conference, the House enacted their version of Cap & Trade, the Waxman-Markey Bill (be sure you remember both Henry Waxman [D-CA] and Edward Markey [D-MA] on election day.) That legislation will ultimately bankrupt every American, and control the settings on the thermostat in your house, summer and winter alike. (That is, if you still have a home after Cap & Trade destroys the company you work for and you no longer have a job.)

The data proved conclusively that, for years, global warming advocates had colluded to manipulate data that supported the view that global warming was real when, in fact, the scientists and "experts" in natural and anthropogenic climate change who claimed the planet was heating up at a phenomenal rate knew the Earth was cooling down, not heating up. They knew the data they were presenting as fact was pure fiction based on corrupt computer models built on the philosophy of "garbage in, garbage out." But, to punish the industrialized world for not sharing its wealth with the impoverished third world, the social progressives needed a catalyst that would allow them to tax the industrialized worlds for their greed.

Not in the least deterred after being caught in their lie, the global warming advocates arrogantly became "climate change" advocates. The conference was renamed, assuming without saying what everyone would know was ridiculous, the climate change advocates want us to believe that global cooling is also caused by man, and his misuse of carbon fuels. In reality, carbon dioxide is critical to the production of oxygen. Oxygen is a necessary component in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Without oxygen, and thus, without carbon dioxide, we all die...and the world the climate change advocates claim they are trying to save dies, too.

Cap & Trade was too important to let a little thing like that stand in their way of imposing a wealth-draining tax on the industrialized world and mandating a draconian reduction in carbon dioxide which, of course, will reduce crop yields worldwide at a time when a growing global population demands the production of even more food that requires—you guessed it—carbon dioxide to feed those plants and grow the food the world needs. Cap & trade is the catalyst that the world government advocates intend to use to redistribute the wealth of the world from the industrialized nations to the overpopulated third world—tomorrow's key consumers and the future profit in the "profit and loss statements" of world's Fortune 1000 companies. The fact that it will reduce crop yields, reduce the quality of air you breathe, and reduce water levels worldwide is of no importance to them because, in their view, there are too many people in the world and if a few million more die of starvation the world will be a better place for those who survive.

Since it is unlikely the US Senate, which knows it's already in trouble with the voters, will let Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] put Cap & Trade back on the table, Obama has already authorized the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Where does he get that authority? From the US Supreme Court, which decided on April 2, 2009 that the EPA has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions—i.e., carbon dioxide. The court also ruled that the EPA had an obligation to regulate greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming unless they (or hopefully, someone with a brain) present a scientific basis for not regulating them. In a separate decision, the high court also ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and factories.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the dissenting opinion, said that the broad coalition of cities, counties and environmental groups that brought the lawsuit had no legal standing as litigants, and the case should never have been accepted by the high court. His dissent was joined by Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, Jr. When the social progressives on the high court hold 4 seats and can usually depend on the one swing vote, they can hear any case they wish to hear; and when they pull that swing vote left of center, they can win any case, whether it has legal standing or not. Once they prevail, those 5 judges have more power than 535 members of Congress.

The Obama EPA took the issue to court to undo 8-years of Bush-43 policy during which time President George W. Bush insisted the government did not have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide since it is a natural element necessary to sustain human life. Giving the EPA the authority to greatly reduce breathable air and drinkable water on Earth were Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Stephen Breyer and swing vote Anthony Kennedy. Since Souter has retired and Stevens is about to, and its likely that Ginsburg will step down before Obama leaves office, it appears only Breyer will need to be impeached for judicial stupidity and ignorance of basic chemistry. Of course, all of the justices and any federal judge appointed by non-citizen Obama need to be replaced as well since the Constitution of the United States does not allow illegal aliens, even if they reside in the big white house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, to sign legislation into law or appoint judges to the federal courts.

Obama's remarks on the oil spill on May 15 were easy to predict since he did a test run of the speech at the Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh earlier in the week. When Obama tied the BP oil spill to Cap & Trade, his words sealed the deal. "I will make the case for clean energy whenever I can," he said, "and I will work with anyone to get this done. And we will get it done."

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who joined the Obama Administration advocating for a system in which all government funds used on government building projects should be required to hired only minority workers even if they were not qualified for the projects, called for the US government to seize BP. In an op ed piece, Reich, now a University of California at Berkeley professor, said: "It's time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP's operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped." Perhaps Obama should appoint Hugo Chavez as temporary CEO of BP while he's at it since Chavez is one of the world's experts on seizing oil companies.

Reich, Obama and Emanuel may not realize this since none of them have likely ever read the Constitution, but there is absolutely nothing in the founding document of the United States that gives any President the power to temporarily declare martial law over one or more corporations and actually seize the operating control of that business entity because the president or his men think they can run it better than the duly elected corporate management of that corporation. Nor, by the way, does a US president have the authority to fire the head of any private company, large or small, in the United States."

© 2010 Jon C. Ryter - All Rights Reserved

http://newswithviews.com/Ryter/jon320.htm

All dictators' promises sound hunky-dory until they're implemented in the real world.

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Published: Friday,18 Jun 2010 | 5:18 PM ETSource CNBC 

"Mountains of rotting food foundat a government warehouse, soaring prices and soldiers raiding wholesalersaccused of hoarding: Food supply is the latest battle in President Hugo Chavez'ssocialist revolution.

Venezuelan army soldiers swept through the workingclass, pro-Chavez neighborhood of Catia in Caracas last week, seizing 120 tonsof rice along with coffee and powdered milk that officials said was to be soldabove regulated prices.

  "The battle for food is a matterof national security," said a red-shirted official from the Food Ministry,resting his arm on a pallet laden with bags of coffee.

  It is also the latest issue todivide the Latin American country where Chavez has nationalized a wideswathe of the economy, he says to reverse years ofexploitation of the poor.

  Chavez supporters are grateful fora network of cheap state-run supermarkets and they say the raids will slowmassive inflation.

  Critics accuse him of steering thecountry toward a communist dictatorship and say he is destroying the privatesector.

  They point to 80,000 tons ofrotting food found in warehouses belonging to the government as evidence thestate is a poor and corrupt administrator. ....."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37786852

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/06/026568.php

"Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
June 20, 2010
Source Washington Examiner
 
"Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's Gulf oil spill.

Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his "boot on the neck" of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet.

Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts "so I know whose ass to kick." Attacking others is a standard campaign tactic when you're in political trouble, and certainly BP, which appears to have taken unwise shortcuts in the Gulf, is an attractive target.

But you don't always win arguments that way. The Obama White House gleefully took on Dick Cheney on the issue of terrorist interrogations. It turned out that more Americans agreed with Cheney's stand, despite his low poll numbers, than Obama's.

Then there is Obama's decision to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf. This penalizes companies with better safety records than BP's and will result in many advanced drilling rigs being sent to offshore oil fields abroad.

The justification offered was an Interior Department report supposedly "peer reviewed" by "experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." But it turned out the drafts the experts saw didn't include any recommendation for a moratorium. Eight of the cited experts have said they oppose the moratorium as more economically devastating than the oil spill and "counterproductive" to safety.

This was blatant dishonesty by the administration, on an Orwellian scale. In defense of a policy that has all the earmarks of mindless panic, that penalizes firms and individuals guilty of no wrongdoing and that will worsen rather than improve our energy situation. Ineffective thuggery.

And what about the decision not to waive the Jones Act, which bars foreign-flag vessels from coming to the aid of the Gulf cleanup? The Bush administration promptly waived it after Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration hasn't and claims unconvincingly that, gee, there aren't really any foreign vessels that could help.

The more plausible explanation is that this is a sop to the maritime unions, part of the union movement that gave Obama and other Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle. It's the Chicago way: Dance with the girl that brung ya.

Or the decision to deny Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to deploy barges to skim oil from the Gulf's surface. Can't do that until we see if they've got enough life preservers and fire equipment. That inspired blogger Rand Simberg to write a blog post he dated June 1, 1940: "The evacuation of British and French troops from the besieged French city of Dunkirk was halted today, over concerns that many of the private vessels that had been deployed for the task were unsafe for troop transport."

Finally, the $20 billion escrow fund that Obama pried out of the BP treasury at the White House when he talked for the first time, 57 days after the rig exploded, with BP Chairman Tony Hayward. It's pleasing to think that those injured by BP will be paid off speedily, but House Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a "shakedown."

For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.

Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command "no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law."

Obama doesn't. "If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so," write the editors of the Economist, who then suggest that markets see Obama as "an American version of Vladimir Putin." Except that Putin is an effective thug."

Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama_s-thuggery-is-useless-in-fighting-spill-96684389.html

June 19, 2010 5:00 A.M.

"Gulf War Three
Mark Steyn
Source National Review Online

"Thank goodness, the president has directed BP to order up some new tackle and connect it to the thingummy next to the whachamacallit.

"I believe it was Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

Barack Obama was supposed to be the best, the very best, and yet he is always, reliably, consistently mediocre. His speech on oil was no better or worse than his speech on race. Yet the Obammyboppers who once squealed with delight are weary of last year’s boy band. At the end of the big Oval Office address, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and the rest of the MSNBC gang jeered the president. For a bewildered Obama, it must have felt like his Ceausescu balcony moment. Had they caught up with him in the White House parking lot, they’d have put him up against the wall and clubbed him to a pulp with Matthews’s no longer tingling leg.

For the first time I felt a wee bit sorry for the poor fellow. What had he done to so enrage his full supporting chorus? In the Washington Post, the reaction of longtime Obammysoxer Eugene Robinson was headlined “Obama Disappoints From The Beginning Of His Speech.”

So what? He always “disappoints.” What would have been startling would have been if he hadn’t “disappointed.” His eve-of-election rally for Martha Coakley “disappointed” the Massachusetts electorate so much they gave Ted Kennedy’s seat to a Republican. His speech for Chicago’s Olympic bid “disappointed” the Oslo committee so much they gave the games to Pyongyang, or Ouagadougou, or any city offering to build a stadium with electrical outlets incompatible with Obama’s prompter. Be honest, guys, his inaugural address “disappointed,” too, didn’t it? Oh, in those days you still did your best to make the case for it. “He carries us from meditative bead to meditative bead, and invites us to contemplate,” wrote Stanley Fish in the New York Times. “There is a technical term for this kind of writing — parataxis, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘the placing of propositions or clauses one after the other without indicating . . . the relation of co-ordination or subordination between them.’”

Gotcha. To a fool, His Majesty’s new clothes appear absolutely invisible. But, to a wise man, the placing of buttons and pockets without indicating the relation of co-ordination is a fascinating exercise in parataxical couture.

And so Obama bounded out to knock ’em dead with another chorus of “I’ll be down to get you in a parataxis, honey,” only to find himself pelted with dead fish rather than Stanley Fish. The Times’s Maureen Dowd deplored his “bloodless quality” and “emotional detachment.” This is the same Maureen Dowd who in 2009 hailed the new presidency with a column titled “Spock At The Bridge” — and she meant it as a compliment. Back then, this administration was supposed to be the new technocracy — cool, calm, and credentialed chaps who would sit down, use their mighty intellects to provide a rigorous, post-partisan, forensic analysis of the problem, and then break for their Vanity Fair photo shoot.

What was it all the smart set said about Bush? Lazy and uncurious? Had Obama or his speechwriters chanced upon last week’s fishwrap, they might have noticed that I described the president as “the very model of a modern major generalist,” and they might have considered whether it might not be time to try something new. For example, he could have demonstrated, as he and his energy secretary (whoops, Nobel Prize–winning energy secretary) have so signally failed to do, an understanding of what is actually happening 5,000 feet underwater and why it’s hard to stop. Instead, lazy and uncurious, this is what the Technocratic Mastermind offered: “Just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist and our nation’s secretary of energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts from academia and other oil companies have also provided ideas and advice.

“As a result of these efforts, we’ve directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology.”

Excellent. The president directed his Nobel Prize–winning Head of Meetings to assemble a meeting to tackle the challenge of mobilizing the assembling of the tackling of the challenge of mobilization, at the end of which they directed BP to order up some new tackle and connect it to the thingummy next to the whachamacallit. Thank you, Mr. President. That and $4.95 will get you a venti oleaginato at Starbucks.

The boring technocrat stuff out of the way, he then did his usual shtick. In the race speech, invited to address specific points about his pastor’s two-decade pattern of ugly anti-American rhetoric and his opportunist peddling of paranoid conspiracies to his gullible congregants about AIDS being invented by the U.S. government to wipe them out, Obama preferred to talk about race in general — you know, blacks, whites, that sort of thing; lot of it about. The media loved it. This time round, invited to address specific points about an unstoppable spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Obama retreated to more generalities — the environment, land, air, that sort of thing; lot of it about. “President Obama said he is going to use the Gulf disaster to push a new energy bill through Congress,” observed Jay Leno. “How about using the Gulf disaster to fix the Gulf disaster?”

When he did get specific, he sounded faintly surreal. “As we speak, old factories are reopening to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows.” Energy-efficient windows? That’s a great line — if Obama’s auditioning to play himself on Saturday Night Live parodies.

And hang on, isn’t this the same guy who was promising to start “kicking ass” just a few days ago? You may find yourself recalling the moment in the film In and Out when Kevin Kline is trying to master the How to Be Manly audiotape and accidentally says, “What an interesting window treatment.”

But, as Rahm Emmanuel shrewdly noted, never let a crisis go to waste, not when you can get a new window treatment out of it.

My colleague Rich Lowry suggested the other day that most people not on the Gulf coast aren’t really that bothered about the spill, and that Obama has allowed himself to be blown off course entirely unnecessarily. There may be some truth to this: For most of America, this is a Potemkin crisis. But what better kind to trip up a Potemkin leader? So the president has now declared war on the great BP spill — Gulf War 3! — and in this epic conflict the speechgiver-in-chief will surely be his own unmanned drone:

“I fired off a speech
But the British kept a-spillin’
Twice as many barrels as there was a month ago,
I fired off a speech
But the British kept a-spillin’
Up the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico . . .”

Chris Matthews and the other leg-tinglers invented an Obama that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, they’re stuck with the one that does, and it will be interesting to see whether he’s capable of plugging the leak in his own support. If not, who knows what the tide might wash up?

Memo to Secretary Rodham Clinton: Do you find yourself of a quiet evening with a strange craving for chicken dinners and county fairs in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe next summer? Need one of those relaunch books to explain why you’re getting back in the game in your country’s hour of need?

“It Takes a Spillage.”

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist "

http://article.nationalreview.com/436712/gulf-war-three/mark-steyn

I pulled the brasschektv link concerning a possible bubble under the gulf.  I had reason to believe it was overblown and speculative at this point.

That does not negate the slow response from Obama to this crisis. 

He remains holding it when it broke.

Awesome article has some really good maps, especially underwater topo of where Deepwater Horizon is located.

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"It's the largest environmental disaster in U.S. - and possibly world - history.

But do you know exactly where it is? Could you point to a map and show where the oil rig sank?

Do you know what the topography of the surrounding area is? Hint: If you think it's flat seafloor - as implied by BPs drawings - you'd be wrong (the spill site is actually located within a giant canyon system, rather than on flat ground).

This essay will provide some basic orientation as to ground zero for the oil spill.........."

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/visualizing-gulf-oil-spill-site.html

Wooohooo Governor Christie!!!  WTG!!!   

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"Democrats Surrender to Christie in N.J. Budget Battle

by  Mark Impomeni
Source Human Events
06/17/2010

"What looked to be an impending showdown between the Democratic-controlled New Jersey legislature and Republican Gov. Chris Christie over the state budget for fiscal 2011 may be over before it ever began. Democrats in the state assembly publicly conceded this week that Christie’s $29 billion budget would pass largely intact with Democratic support.  

The move comes on the heels of last week’s collision between Christie and State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Camden). Sweeney delivered two bills reinstating New Jersey’s expired “millionaire’s tax” to the governor’s office in the State House, only to see Christie veto the bills almost as quickly as he received them. Sweeney promised that the Democrats would return with a similar tax increase soon, but reports indicate that there was no stomach among Democrats either to attempt a veto override or pass another version of the tax.  

Rather than confront Christie and his veto pen again, Democrats have decided to allow the budget to go through. However, they are going to try and force Republicans to “own” the proposed cuts to programs for the elderly and the poor by insisting that those bills be initiated and sponsored by the minority. Most Democrats will then vote against the bills, supplying only the eight votes in the Assembly and four in the Senate needed for the measures to pass each house.

The chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, Assemblyman Lou Greenwald (D), explained that the Democrats’ strategy is designed to pin responsibility on Republicans in the legislature for Christie’s proposed cuts. “The Republican Party is going to own this budget,” he said. “We will get them the necessary votes to pass it, but they will own it.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo (D) similarly challenged Republicans to stand up for Christie’s budget. Referring to the Democrats’ claim that Christie’s reductions in state aid to municipalities and a one-year elimination of property tax rebates contained in the budget will cause property taxes to go up. “Show us some sponsors,” he said. “Show us some people willing to stand up for these tax increases.”

If Democrats are trying to put them on defensive, however, New Jersey Republicans are not taking the bait. Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R) told HUMAN EVENTS last week that his caucus would be glad to sponsor any bills necessary to implement Gov. Christie’s budget. “If the Democratic majority is either incapable or unwilling to sponsor the bills, we certainly will do so,” Kean said.  

Kean scoffed at Assemblyman Greenwald’s suggestion that Republicans would “own” the budget cuts, turning the charge back on the majority, and aligning his caucus squarely on the governor’s side.  

“Democrats in the Legislature have continued to practice the politics of the status quo by insisting on tax increases rather than spending reductions,” Kean said. “Democrats continue to focus on gimmicks and unsustainable one-shots (like the millionaire's tax) even as Chris Christie is focusing on real solutions for the affordability crisis facing the citizens of our state. The Democrats' record of 115 tax increases on every thing from income to sales to phones to tires to home energy over the past eight years is a clear contrast to Governor Christie's efforts thus far.”  

Christie’s budget cutting ways got an unexpected boost from the courts this week, as a New Jersey appeals panel decided that the governor acted within his authority in rescinding planned school aid in February. The court ruled that the governor’s order left school districts with options from relying on other revenue to cutting programs.

“A school district may have sufficient resources without transferring excess surplus to support its current operating budget,” the court ruled. “If not…the district may review its budget for potential efficiencies.”

New Jersey Democrats have been frustrated at nearly every turn by Christie’s forthright and frank talk about New Jersey’s budget problems. With the state facing an $11 billion shortfall in fiscal 2011 and unemployment in the state at 9.8%, traditional Democratic arguments like increasing taxes on the wealthy are not having the same impact as in prior budget battles.

Republicans have tied their fate squarely to Christie’s, who often states that he was not elected to worry about getting reelected, but to fix the problems in state government. Kean said that Senate Republicans have adopted a similar attitude. Asked if Republicans were comfortable facing the voters next year after sponsoring the necessary implementing legislation, Kean said, “I’m not worried one bit.”

Mark Impomeni is a New Jersey based freelance writer and contributing editor at RedState. He will be reporting regularly on New York/New Jersey metropolitan area politics.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37530

       
"Era of Obama rhetoric is over
Examiner Editorial
June 17, 2010
Source Washington Examiner
 
(PHOTO) The President made a speech regarding the Gulf oil spill from the Oval Office Tuesday — ending an era in which many people believed in his supposed rhetorical genius. (Alex Brandon/AP)  
 
"President Obama's Oval Office speech Tuesday marked the end of an era -- an era in which at least half the population believed any crisis could be defused by one man's supposed rhetorical genius and personal charisma. The derisive reception of President Obama's Tuesday night speech from the Oval Office on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill makes it clear that Obama's sweet voice no longer suffices, not even for his biggest boosters.

The thrill that Obamian rhetoric once sent up the leg of MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews is apparently gone. Obama's repeated references to Energy Secretary Steven Chu's Nobel Prize, Matthews said, now make him want to "barf." He compared Obama with former President Carter. Host Keith Olbermann, who normally wouldn't hesitate to lavish praise on Obama for coughing, was almost as blunt. "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days," he said. Even Howard Fineman, a font of Washington conventional wisdom and a huge fan of the president, suggested that Obama wasn't acting like a commander in chief.

All three liberal commentators agreed: The speech contained little substance and far too few specifics. Even Obama's fans are catching on to a key feature of his political success. Biographer David Mendell described it before Obama's election as his "his ingenious lack of specificity. ... While talking or writing about a deeply controversial subject, he considers all points of view before cautiously giving his own often risk-averse assessment, an opinion that often appears so universal that people of various viewpoints would consider it their own." Now that a crisis is afoot, such hedging no longer helps Obama become all things to all men. Instead, it makes him appear unprepared. He is once again the state senator who voted "present" 130 times, and who on at least one occasion was present and near the Senate chamber but absented himself from a controversial vote.

The same day Obama spoke, a new poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found that 50 percent of Louisianans think Obama's response to the spill is poorer than his predecessor's response to Hurricane Katrina. The tainted, oily tide has turned on the inexperienced man whom Americans placed in the Oval Office based on hopes and dreams and little else."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Era-of-Obama-rhetoric-is-over-96490264.html

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Conspiracy theory or fact?  Published by European Union Times. VIDEO showing Kenyan birth certificate with embossed seal, also enlarged birth certificate.

You decide for yourself.

Page loads slowly.

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http://www.eutimes.net/2010/06/barack-h-obama-was-born-in-kenya-the-real-birth-certificate-at-last/

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2010/06/fairtax-rally-this-weekend.html