The Coming Gulf Coast Firestorm: How the BP oil catastrophe could destroy a major U.S. city

(NaturalNews) It’s hurricane season in the Atlantic, and that means Mother Nature could be whipping up fierce storms and sending them charging into the Gulf Coast any day now. In a normal hurricane season, that’s bad enough all by itself… remember Katrina? But now there’s something even more worrisome in the recipe: There’s oil in the water . So what happens when a Katrina-class hurricane comes along and picks up a few million gallons of oil, then drops that volatile liquid on a major U.S. city like Galveston or New Orleans? Now, before we pursue this line of thinking any further, let’s dismiss the skeptics out there who think oil can’t drop from the sky because oil doesn’t evaporate. Actually, if you look at the history of hurricanes and storms, you’ll find thousands of accounts of lots of things that don’t evaporate nonetheless falling out of the sky. The phrase “raining cats and dogs” it’s entirely metaphor, you know: There are documented accounts of all sorts of things raining down from the sky: Fish, frogs, large balls of ice, and so on. If rain storms can pick up fish out of the ocean, then drop them on land, then they certainly have the capacity to pick up oil, too. Besides, as any chemist will tell you, the various petrochemicals found in crude oil evaporate even without a storm picking them up! Oil, in other words, does evaporate into the air. Or, more accurately, some of the lighter chemicals in crude oil evaporate even at temperatures of around 100 degrees (F). Those are Gulf Coast temperatures. These chemicals burn Now, these lighter chemicals that more easily evaporate also happen to have lower flash points, meaning they catch on fire more easily and at lower temperatures than other elements in the oil. The flash point for gasoline, for example, is much lower than diesel fuel. That’s because gasoline is “more flammable” and is a lighter fuel than diesel. The EPA classifies oils into Classes A – D. Class A is the lightest kind of oil, which the EPA describes as follows (http://www.epa.gov/oem/content/learning/crude.htm) “These oils are highly fluid, often clear, spread rapidly on solid or water surfaces, have a strong odor, a high evaporation rate, and are usually flammable. They penetrate porous surfaces such as dirt and sand, and may be persistent in such a matrix.” That same EPA document makes it quite clear that the more volatile oils can evaporate from crude oil, rendering the remaining oil heavier and more “tar-like.” And we already know these oils can catch on fire. That’s the whole point of tapping crude oil, of course: To pump it into engines then catch it on fire in order to turn the energy of that mini-explosion into force (to drive the eight pistons in your gas-guzzling SUV, for example). How the fire happens So let’s say the oil blowout continues, and the Gulf of Mexico is carrying millions of gallons of crude oil as a massive hurricane approaches. It’s a hot July day in the Gulf of Mexico, with temperatures soaring towards 110 degrees, accelerating the evaporation of volatile oils which get mixed in with hurricane-force winds. The hurricane makes landfall in New Orleans, let’s say, dumping potentially hundreds of thousands of gallons of what is essentially “volatile fuel” on the city of New Orleans. Now, at first it’s just a wet, slippery toxic mess that kills trees and grass. But what happens after the storm when the sun dries out the city? All the dead trees killed by the oil turn into kindling. The sun evaporates off the rain water, leaving behind fuel. A few days of sun baking and you have a city doused in fuel, ready to burst into flames . It’s every fireman’s worst nightmare. The whole city is essentially turned into a giant match. Now, sure, the more volatile fuels might evaporate, but as they do, they’d fill the city with explosive fumes . One spark, one fire, one lightning strike and your whole city literally goes up in flames. The BP oil spill, in other words, provides the fuel that could turn an ordinary hurricane into Mother Nature’s arson attack on an entire city. Like a nuclear bomb This would not be an ordinary city on fire, either: It would be a city doused with volatile fuels that soaked it to the core. The sewers would explode like massive terrorist bombs, ripping to shred any underground infrastructure (fiber optics, water delivery, electrical infrastructure, etc.). The pavement itself would be on fire, as would parks, grasslands and forests. The city would burn from top to bottom, and there would be no point even trying to put out the flames. All we could do is evacuate and watch it all burn to the ground. And in the aftermath, you’d still have oil covering the beaches, oil in the ocean, and the threat of more firestorms yet to come. It could be just the first of many such incidents striking the Gulf Coast. Think this couldn’t happen? Sure, and BP said the oil was a “tiny” little leak that didn’t matter, either. They said the oil rigs would never explode. They said they would cap the blowout. They said they would protect the shores. And all along the problem just got worse and worse until even the press noticed that these corporate criminals just couldn’t stop lying. Now, BP is at least $20 billion in the hole in an effort to compensate some of the Gulf Coast businesses for the damage they’ve caused. But how will they compensate people if an entire city burns to the ground? The answer? They won’t. That would be the end of BP. Immediately bankruptcy. B.P. = “Bankruptcy Protection,” after all. No more payments go out to anyone. BP goes belly up just like all the fish being murdered by CorExit dispersant chemicals in the Gulf right now. The company goes down in flames just like New Orleans (or some other major city on the coast). Of course, the scenario I’m describing here is theoretical, and I hope it’s a worst-case scenario, too. But it is possible. Catastrophe is what happens at the intersection of poor planning and bad luck. BP has given us poor planning, and now Mother Nature may be about to deliver a heavy-handed dose of bad luck in the form of a seasonal hurricane that takes oil from the Gulf and dumps it on land. We can only hope that these two elements do not collide on our shores. For if they do, we may witness loss on a scale our world hasn’t seen since the dropping of atomic weapons on civilian populations in World War II. If a hurricane drops oil on New Orleans (or any other Gulf Coast city) and it goes up in flames a few days later, the aftermath will, indeed, resemble the effects of a nuclear bomb explosion. You probably don’t want to be anywhere near that. Needless to say, if it starts raining oil in your neighborhood, that might be a good time to grab whatever you value and get outta Dodge.

BP’s oil gusher in the Gulf: Spin terminology explained (satire)

(NaturalNews Satire) What exactly is a “junk shot?” How about “top kill” or an “undersea plume?” The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is introducing the world to all sorts of fascinating words and phrases from the world of Big Oil. Some of them can be a bit confusing, so as a public service to NaturalNews readers, I’ve published a short dictionary that provides the real meaning behind many of these new terms. “Top Kill” – A technique used to kill everything on the TOP of the ocean using chemical dispersants that cause the dead animal bodies to sink to the BOTTOM of the ocean so they can’t be caught on camera. “Top Hat” – What BP executives will all be wearing at the huge banquet they will soon be holding to celebrate how they pulled off the environmental crime of the century without even a slap on the wrist (thanks to Big Government complicity). “Blowout Preventer” – BP’s public relations person who lies to the press to prevent a P.R. blowout from occurring. A blowout preventer preventer is any member of the press who asks tough questions. “Junk Shot” – An effort to thrust shredded tires, golf balls and other trash into the hole to stop the oil flow. This is the oil industry’s attempt to try to make the Gulf of Mexico look like the streets of Mexico City by filling it with trash. “Chemical Dispersant” – A highly toxic chemical substance being pumped into the Gulf of Mexico by the hundreds of thousands of gallons in an effort to kill so much marine life that the toxicity of the oil itself seems small by comparison. “Undersea Plume” – Rhymes with “doom.” A term used to confuse mainstream news viewers who would be disturbed by the more accurate term, “Undersea VOLCANO of oil.” “Live Feed” – What BP calls a video loop which repeats a few choice frames over and over again and morphs them to create the illusion that it’s actually a live video. The effect is further enhanced by adding a clock that counts off the seconds in real time in the lower right-hand corner. The public is now utterly hypnotized by these video loops, much like house cats watching ceiling fans. “Mud” – A code word for crude oil. This is being repeated on the TV news when newscasters explain that the live video feed showing crude oil bursting out of the ocean floor is mostly just “mud.” They actually mean oil. Mud, after all, does not explode from the ocean floor in a volcanic burst. “According to plan” – A British Petroleum euphemism for “all f**ked up.” As in, “The top kill procedure is going according to plan.” The cleanup is going according to plan, too, it seems. As long as BP is in charge, everything is going according to plan. How dare you suggest they have no clue what they’re doing… “Barrel of oil” – An imaginary unit of oil volume that can be morphed into whatever size BP wishes it to be. At investors’ meetings, the number of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico magically becomes very large, but during oil spills, the number magically shrinks to appear much smaller. “Cleanup workers” – Temporary workers hired by BP to comb the beaches in front of news cameras to make it appear like something useful is happening. BP has now promised to triple the number of active cleanup workers to nine. “You will not be left behind” – A phrase uttered by President Obama, who, immediately after saying it, left everybody behind and took all of BPs beach cleaning crews with him, too. Obama has now returned to his golf game, where he claims to be working on the oil spill problem by aiming his golf balls in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico and hoping they will land in the gaping hole at the bottom of the ocean, thereby making them “junk shot.” Let’s get serious Okay, everything above is just satire, but in reality this Gulf spill is serious business. Although we try to poke fun at the mistakes that were made in causing this to happen, the truth is that this situation is no laughing matter. In the days ahead, I’m going to be posting stories about the seriousness of this environmental catastrophe and what it might mean for the future of our world. Make no mistake: This event has changed the course of our energy future, and it may actually change it in a very positive way in the long term (even though the short term cost of this catastrophe may be outrageously large). Watch for more coverage of this unfolding event right here at NaturalNews.com. And in the mean time, try not to be hoodwinked by BP spin. The truth is, if they had any freaking idea what they were doing, the disaster wouldn’t have happened in the first place (or they would have capped it long before now).

The BP plan for offshore rig riches (comic)

(NaturalNews) Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He believes that the pocket of oil that’s been hit is so powerful and under so much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. And Noel is not the only person questioning the scope of this disaster. A recent story from the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reports that many independent scientists believe the leak is spewing far more than the 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, per day being reported by most media sources. They believe the leak could be discharging up to 25,000 barrels (more than one million gallons) of crude oil a day right now. The riser pipe that was bent and crimped after the oil rig sank is restricting some of the flow from the tapped oil pocket, but as the leaking oil rushes into the well’s riser, it is forcing sand with it at very high speeds and “sand blasting” the pipe (which is quickly eroding its structural integrity). According to a leaked National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration memo obtained by an Alabama newspaper , if the riser erodes any further and creates more leaks, up to 50,000 barrels, or 2.1 million gallons, per day of crude oil could begin flooding Gulf waters every day. When this disaster first occurred, the media downplayed it. BP spokespersons were quick to claim that the leakage was minimal and that crews would eventually be able to contain it. But as time went on, it became clear that things were not under control and that the spill was far more serious than we were originally told. (Gee, sound familiar? Remember Katrina?) Yet some of the media reports still seem more like press releases than actual reporting because they continue to repeat what the public relations cleanup crews (pun intended) would like the public to believe rather than what’s actually happening. Reality, it seems, has a nasty habit of interfering with corporate spin. Cap and trade becomes “cap and pray” The New York Times yesterday reported that BP is working on a large containment dome that is intended to cap the leak and catch the escaping oil so that it can be safely pumped to the surface. Meanwhile, crews are said to be working on fixing the broken blow-out preventer valve that should have stopped the leak from happening in the first place, but they have been unsuccessful thus far. Almost every report says that BP is doing everything it can to contain the spill and stop the leak, even though the company claims it is not technically at fault. According to an article from the U.K. Daily Mail , BP’s CEO Tony Hayward recently responded to the cleanup efforts by explaining, “This is not our accident but it is our responsibility to deal with it.” Swiss-based Transocean is the company that actually owned and operated the sunken rig. It manned the rig with its own crew and BP just leased it from Transocean (which makes you wonder why BP is so willing to take full responsibility for everything). BP says that it’s working on a relief well, but that it could take up to three months to complete. Until then, the company is trying several different approaches to at least slow the leak and hopefully stop it altogether. Mind you, almost all of the information about the spill from day one has come directly from BP which obviously has every incentive to downplay the true environmental destruction that could be caused by this oil spill. Even the word “spill” is incorrect. This isn’t some ship of oil that spilled into the ocean — it’s a “volcano” of oil spewing from the belly of Mother Earth herself. It’s under extremely high pressure, it’s spewing a huge volume of oil directly into the ocean, and there so far seems to be no human-engineered way of stopping it (short of setting off an underground nuclear bomb near the well site). Addressing the unanswered questions According to the CSM article, environmental risk models are normally performed for pollutants like crude oil, yet not one model has yet been released for this incident by BP or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many are wondering why this crucial information has not been made public. Could it be because the results of the model might seem too catastrophic? Neither has there been an adequate explanation given for exactly why the oil rig exploded… twice! Some reports indicate that the crews responsible for properly cementing the well casing didn’t do it right. Others suggest that the oil deposit was just too large and under too much pressure for the equipment to handle it. (Be careful where you poke around the planet if you can’t handle what comes out, right?) It’s also important to note that, according to a recent New York Times article , Halliburton was actually the company responsible for all the cementing work on the rig, which brings a third party into the picture. BP’s federal permits allowed the company to drill up to 20,000 feet deep, but according to one of the workers who was onboard the rig during the explosion, drilling in excess of 22,000 feet had been taking place. This same worker is said to handle company records for BP, but BP has denied these allegations. BP has declined to comment, however, on other allegations that the spill happened because it chose not to install necessary deep-water valves which would have acted as a last resort seal of protection in the event of an emergency. Several other allegations include suspicions that the crews allowed gas to build up in the well bore and that the rig operator tried to detach too quickly from the well, causing a disruption. BP, Halliburton and Transocean have all indicated that they are continuing to investigate the situation. When companies investigate themselves, however, the truth rarely comes out. The possibility of an extinction event? It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing’s for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we’re being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it’s true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries. Already these slicks are making their way into Gulf wetlands and beaches where they are destroying birds, fish, and even oyster beds. This is disastrous for both the seafood industry and the people whose livelihoods depend on it. It’s also devastating to the local wildlife which could begin to die off from petroleum toxicity. Various ecosystems around the world could be heavily impacted by this spill in ways that we don’t even yet realize. There’s no telling where this continuous stream of oil will end up and what damage it might cause. Theoretically, we could be looking at modern man’s final act of destruction on planet Earth, because this one oil rig blowout could set in motion a global extinction wave that begins with the oceans and then whiplashes back onto human beings themselves. We cannot live without life in the oceans. Man is arrogant to drill so deeply into the belly of Mother Earth, and through this arrogance, we may have just set in motion events that will ultimately destroy us. In the future, we may in fact talk about life on Earth as “pre-spill” versus “post-spill.” Because a post-spill world may be drowned in oil, devoid of much ocean life, and suffering a global extinction event that will crash the human population by 90 percent or more. We may have just done to ourselves, in other words, what a giant meteorite did to the dinosaurs.

Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we’re being told?

(NaturalNews) Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He believes that the pocket of oil that’s been hit is so powerful and under so much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. And Noel is not the only person questioning the scope of this disaster. A recent story from the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reports that many independent scientists believe the leak is spewing far more than the 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, per day being reported by most media sources. They believe the leak could be discharging up to 25,000 barrels (more than one million gallons) of crude oil a day right now. The riser pipe that was bent and crimped after the oil rig sank is restricting some of the flow from the tapped oil pocket, but as the leaking oil rushes into the well’s riser, it is forcing sand with it at very high speeds and “sand blasting” the pipe (which is quickly eroding its structural integrity). According to a leaked National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration memo obtained by an Alabama newspaper , if the riser erodes any further and creates more leaks, up to 50,000 barrels, or 2.1 million gallons, per day of crude oil could begin flooding Gulf waters every day. When this disaster first occurred, the media downplayed it. BP spokespersons were quick to claim that the leakage was minimal and that crews would eventually be able to contain it. But as time went on, it became clear that things were not under control and that the spill was far more serious than we were originally told. (Gee, sound familiar? Remember Katrina?) Yet some of the media reports still seem more like press releases than actual reporting because they continue to repeat what the public relations cleanup crews (pun intended) would like the public to believe rather than what’s actually happening. Reality, it seems, has a nasty habit of interfering with corporate spin. Cap and trade becomes “cap and pray” The New York Times yesterday reported that BP is working on a large containment dome that is intended to cap the leak and catch the escaping oil so that it can be safely pumped to the surface. Meanwhile, crews are said to be working on fixing the broken blow-out preventer valve that should have stopped the leak from happening in the first place, but they have been unsuccessful thus far. Almost every report says that BP is doing everything it can to contain the spill and stop the leak, even though the company claims it is not technically at fault. According to an article from the U.K. Daily Mail , BP’s CEO Tony Hayward recently responded to the cleanup efforts by explaining, “This is not our accident but it is our responsibility to deal with it.” Swiss-based Transocean is the company that actually owned and operated the sunken rig. It manned the rig with its own crew and BP just leased it from Transocean (which makes you wonder why BP is so willing to take full responsibility for everything). BP says that it’s working on a relief well, but that it could take up to three months to complete. Until then, the company is trying several different approaches to at least slow the leak and hopefully stop it altogether. Mind you, almost all of the information about the spill from day one has come directly from BP which obviously has every incentive to downplay the true environmental destruction that could be caused by this oil spill. Even the word “spill” is incorrect. This isn’t some ship of oil that spilled into the ocean — it’s a “volcano” of oil spewing from the belly of Mother Earth herself. It’s under extremely high pressure, it’s spewing a huge volume of oil directly into the ocean, and there so far seems to be no human-engineered way of stopping it (short of setting off an underground nuclear bomb near the well site). Addressing the unanswered questions According to the CSM article, environmental risk models are normally performed for pollutants like crude oil, yet not one model has yet been released for this incident by BP or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many are wondering why this crucial information has not been made public. Could it be because the results of the model might seem too catastrophic? Neither has there been an adequate explanation given for exactly why the oil rig exploded… twice! Some reports indicate that the crews responsible for properly cementing the well casing didn’t do it right. Others suggest that the oil deposit was just too large and under too much pressure for the equipment to handle it. (Be careful where you poke around the planet if you can’t handle what comes out, right?) It’s also important to note that, according to a recent New York Times article , Halliburton was actually the company responsible for all the cementing work on the rig, which brings a third party into the picture. BP’s federal permits allowed the company to drill up to 20,000 feet deep, but according to one of the workers who was onboard the rig during the explosion, drilling in excess of 22,000 feet had been taking place. This same worker is said to handle company records for BP, but BP has denied these allegations. BP has declined to comment, however, on other allegations that the spill happened because it chose not to install necessary deep-water valves which would have acted as a last resort seal of protection in the event of an emergency. Several other allegations include suspicions that the crews allowed gas to build up in the well bore and that the rig operator tried to detach too quickly from the well, causing a disruption. BP, Halliburton and Transocean have all indicated that they are continuing to investigate the situation. When companies investigate themselves, however, the truth rarely comes out. The possibility of an extinction event? It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing’s for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we’re being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it’s true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries. Already these slicks are making their way into Gulf wetlands and beaches where they are destroying birds, fish, and even oyster beds. This is disastrous for both the seafood industry and the people whose livelihoods depend on it. It’s also devastating to the local wildlife which could begin to die off from petroleum toxicity. Various ecosystems around the world could be heavily impacted by this spill in ways that we don’t even yet realize. There’s no telling where this continuous stream of oil will end up and what damage it might cause. Theoretically, we could be looking at modern man’s final act of destruction on planet Earth, because this one oil rig blowout could set in motion a global extinction wave that begins with the oceans and then whiplashes back onto human beings themselves. We cannot live without life in the oceans. Man is arrogant to drill so deeply into the belly of Mother Earth, and through this arrogance, we may have just set in motion events that will ultimately destroy us. In the future, we may in fact talk about life on Earth as “pre-spill” versus “post-spill.” Because a post-spill world may be drowned in oil, devoid of much ocean life, and suffering a global extinction event that will crash the human population by 90 percent or more. We may have just done to ourselves, in other words, what a giant meteorite did to the dinosaurs.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows disastrous legacy of Halliburton and the real cost of the oil era

(NaturalNews) Oil is a dirty business. It’s not just the politics of oil, which are dirty enough by themselves — it’s also the environmental toll of the substance. Even when used correctly, its chemical byproducts cause air pollution and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But the real mess comes when things go terribly wrong — much like what happened recently when the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank to the ocean floor off the coast of Louisiana. This set in motion a chain of disastrous events that are only now beginning to unfold. Nearly 50% of the seafood consumed by Americans comes from the Gulf of Mexico, by the way. That explains why seafood contains such an alarmingly high concentration of mercury as well as industrial chemicals — because the Gulf of Mexico is America’s toilet where every toxic chemical, heavy metal and pharmaceutical that’s flushed down the drain ends up getting dumped . No wonder the Gulf of Mexico is home to one of the planet’s largest ocean “dead zones” — over 6,000 square miles of dead water where fish can’t even survive (http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/). And that was before the oil spill. Now, thanks to a creeping oil slick that’s approaching shorelines throughout the gulf, the breeding grounds for a huge number of marine species is now threatened. Species from pelicans to shrimp are likely to be devastated by this oil slick. It’s already being called a “mega-disaster” by environmentalists. “The magnitude and the potential for ecological damage is probably more great than anything we’ve ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Nancy Rabalais in a Washington Post interview (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/30/AR2010043001788_pf.html). She heads the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie, La. “Once it hits the shoreline, it’ll get into everything.” “Ninety-seven percent of commercial fish and shellfish in the Gulf depend on estuaries and wetlands during their life cycle,” said Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . Those wetlands are about to be covered with a thick brown slime that will make reproduction of seafood species virtually impossible. Oil continues to spill out of the sunken rig wreck at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day. So far, there’s little hope of stopping it. Observers are already characterizing this spill as “worse than the Exxon Valdez spill” in 1989. Everything you’ve read here so far is being widely reported in the mainstream media. The story that follows, however, is much more difficult to find. The Halliburton link and Washington hypocrisy It was only a few weeks ago that Obama proudly announced he would expand offshore drilling, breaking one of his many now-worthless campaign promises. The lack of outcry from Democrats over this announcement was nothing short of bizarre: If Bush had announced an expansion of offshore drilling, he would have been widely (and rightly) condemned for it by the left. But when Obama announces the same thing, it’s apparently okay with Democrats. Back on the Republican side of things, the company Halliburton — yes, the same one that rakes in billions of dollars in profits rebuilding things in the Middle East after the U.S. military blows them up — is the company that completed the “rig cementing” just 20 hours before the rig exploded. A federal study, meanwhile, shows that most rig blowouts are caused by problems with rig cementing. So now it appears that Halliburton may be implicated in this environmental disaster. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/30/MNRB1D7PQB.DTL) The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that a lawsuit filed by a rig technician who was injured in the explosion claims Halliburton made crucial mistakes in cementing the well, “increasing the pressure at the well and contributing to the fire, explosion and resulting oil spill.” (http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_14996372?source=rss) A blog at the L.A. Times explored the full extent of the Halliburton connection to the oil spill: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/04/gulf-oil-spill-the-halliburton-connection.html Get ready for some theater Halliburton, which was once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, now finds itself in the spotlight as Congressional investigators are beginning to ask questions. But don’t expect this to go very far: It’s all just theater to appease the public until memory of this event fades and the old corrupt Washington / Big Business machine can get rolling again. Since when has concern for the environment ever got in the way of powerful corporate interests that have political pull in Washington? Rest assured that no matter what the immediate fallout from this disastrous oil-era accident, the Halliburtons of the world continue to rake in billions of dollars in annual profits even as their mistakes extract an incalculable loss of life across our natural world. Halliburton has shareholders to please, after all… no matter how many pelicans, sea turtles or dolphins have to die in the process. Slick, huh? Additional information: The Gulf of Mexico is actually home to five of the world’s dead zones (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/additional/science-focus/ocean-color/dead_zones.shtml)

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