More wonderful news from the worst spill in history, which, according to Sarah Palin, is because those damned environmentalists stopped the good people at the oil companies from drilling in safe places, like national parks, and national heritage areas, and forced them to drill in deep water.

See, if only we let them do whatever they want, whenever they want, everything would have been fine.

On a far more serious note, the amount of oil that is believed to be staying deep in the water, and travelling around in vast plumes, is of real concern, for many scientists.

Quote:

Here is the link to the story at NewsWeek;

http://services.newsweek.com/id/238620

I would rather just look *at* Sarah Palin.

Palin might have a point, but it's her interest in this argument which is spurious. There are a minority of Alaskans who've been trying to override federal legislation to get oil and gas projects approved for years.

Resources companies, you see, pay taxes. Everybody's happy - except the fish.

Anyway, you wouldn't expect the former governor of a state with the second largest oil spill in the world to come out in defense of the oil companies, but that's Palin for you.

She's got a big heart, that woman, a heart of gold.

The only way to solve this problem is to empty the reservoir and to sell the contents for premium profits.
They can't plug the hole because the pressure (which has been substantially lowered from it's initial state) may cause bursts in other areas which have thus far withstood the eons of time without a single dollar reaching the hands of any individual.

..Yes I'm being wayyyy sarcaaaaaastic  

We all know how Americans love to lambaste foreigners with their self-righteous indignation (a la what they've done to Tony Hayward - not that BP shouldn't be held accountable), but will the US Senate and American public follow Britain's lead by levelling the same fury at its own head of state/government, George Bush as the British have with Tony Blair over Iraq?

If they did, then Australia (America's puppy in most things cultural, military and political) would follow suit in condemning Howard for the same reason.

NOAA has the following information site for this spill, which may be of interest!

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/dwh.php?entry_id=809

mozzaok wrote on Jun 24^th, 2010 at 8:15am:


It's hard to even imagine the extent of the damage created by this disaster. The oil and the burnoffs are killing off a massive amount of marine animals - not to mention the livelihoods of thousands of people and it's only getting worse.

This eruption is greater than the Exxon Valdez spill where 20 years of legal action from locals trying to get compensation from Exxon ended up in virtually nothing for those whose lives were ruined. Whole towns were killed off and the collateral damage is still apparent today.

How much can this poor planet take and what unseen damage is this oil spill creating, not only visibly, but below the earth's layer.

If we have to look at the most destructive nation - it would be the US with their greed for excess of everything.

This sort of carelessness created by short cuts and not following safe procedures should be brought before the International Court. These oil companies don't listen and are not regulated.  

There are plenty of oil spills around Australia's coast also, although not of this magnitude - but the media gives them little attention.

What happens when we experience a disaster similar to this? Recently oil drilling has been approved 20 kms off the Central Coast. If there's an accident - a huge proportion of the east coast will be affected.

The reason we don't invest properly in alternatives for fuel is because these greedy multinationals have control of our governments and they don't want the competition.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I read today that there may be fissures around the well that could potentially start leaking too.