Northwest Indiana Discussion

and if Obama came out and said something on the first day, you and your ilk would have accused him of trying to score political points off of a tragedy. Now that he tries to do something behind closed doors he's accused of not trying to do anything at all.

The rig exploded on April 20, but a state of emergency was not called until April 29. In the span of nine days, the federal government squandered valuable opportunities to deal with the spill. With a rig leaking 210,000 gallons of oil per day, the cost to our state will be immense, certainly in the range of billions of dollars.

According to ABC 26 WGNO-TV Meteorologist Hank Allen, “this could be the biggest ecological disaster of all-time, bigger than the Valdez.” The Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 was in a contained area, but this spill is anything but contained. We have no idea when the multiple leaks will be stopped.

Yesterday, the President announced that the Department of Defense might be used. Yet, without concrete action, this type of empty promise means nothing. In reality, the White House should have immediately dispatched any and all assets of the Defense or Homeland Security Departments that may help mitigate the negative impact of this disaster.

Finally, today, ten days after the explosion, officials from the Department of Homeland Security officials are reaching the area. Why the delay? Yesterday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commented that the spill is of “national significance” and will devote more resources to the crisis. Yet, where was this urgency a week ago?

The poor response has not gone unnoticed by local leaders. State Representative Sam Jones (D-Franklin) claimed that he was “in deep concern about the lackadaisical response we have gotten on the oil spill containment.”

If this was the response of the Bush administration, there would be a media firestorm. Commentators would be howling with anger and loud protests if Bush had been caught so unprepared. However, since this poor response is the handiwork of the Obama administration, the media has been mostly quiet. In fact, President Obama has not yet visited the area and has not even made a Bush style flyover of the region.

As this disaster unfolds troubling questions remain unanswered. How did this explosion occur? Why did the inspections on the Deepwater Horizon prior to the explosion fail to find anything amiss? .What took the President and his Department of Homeland Security so long to act? Obama’s failures to show quick and decisive leadership on this environmental and economic disaster will only intensify concerns shared by so many Americans that he is not qualified to serve as President of the United States.

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/US/Politi ... _10737.asp

Frenzied options trading was catalyzed by news the firm is assisting in ongoing investigations regarding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as HAL reportedly provided a variety of oilfield services to Deepwater Horizon rig, which is the rig that caught fire and sank last week.

Very interesting, we have a Halliburton connection

It's OBAMA'S fault; IT'S OBAMA'S FAULT!

Yes Obama put the fault rig together by hand. I told him, "Barry, you're not an engineer." and he said, "Nonsense, I've got this bad boy."

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT:
The department deployed SWAT teams from the Minerals Management Service to inspect 30 drilling rigs operating in the deepwater sections of the Gulf of Mexico. Inspections should be completed within the next week, according to an Interior Department spokeswoman.

Inspectors will check to see whether the rigs have conducted blow-out preventer tests and inspect related records, the spokeswoman said. The teams will also verify that emergency well control exercises are taking place. Inspectors will then inspect 47 deep-water production platforms in the gulf, a process that will take longer than rig inspections because of the complexities of the structures.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/04/30/left-wing-oil-spill-should-take-drilling-off-the-table-for-good.aspx

Kevin Jones, blogging for Mother Jones, shares an e-mail he sent a friend, wondering when Rush Limbaugh would blame Obama for the BP explosion. “Honest to God, I didn't know he'd said this a few hours earlier” and discusses how Limbaugh suggests “So, since they're sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they're sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I'm just noting the timing here.”

That prompted a response from one reader: “We endured months and months of Democrats and liberals 'blaming' Katrina on Bush, even though Bush doesn't control the weather. Even though state authorities were horrible, worse than the federal government, in regards to their pre-storm and post-storm actions and reactions. Yet now, those same people, are going to bitch and raise hell that conservatives are going to do the same thing to Obama. Turnabout is fair play. Obama should own this just like Bush 'owned' Katrina.”

Let the finger-pointing and mudslinging begin.

I'm sure they're not SWAT teams like our local police have.