Mystery Bird Death, the Sky is Falling – Part 2

In keeping up on this story, you can see my first post here:    http://zdeaconblue.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/mystery-bird-death-the-sky-is-falling-in-arkansas-and-louisiana-and-fish-too/

I read and article in the NY Times today, the article was good, no new information but what was really spectacular were the comments in the comment section that went everywhere from truly nutty to Apocalyptic to really reasonable. My favorite two explanations, the birds crashed into either a cloaked Klingon Vessel or Wonder Woman’s invisible plan. I’ve lumped the statements into categories and I’ve quoted them as they appeared with the links they included although I did correct the spelling errors.

First, there is a lot out there to show that this has happened before, globally and often, that suggests either this is not so out of the ordinary or a really huge global problem, I’ll let you decide which it is:

“No mention of the bird kills in Argentina and Sweden also this week? Is this some sort of experiment gone wrong?

Sweden

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article8370375.ab http://www.thelocal.se/31262/20110105/

Argentina

http://www.ratedesi.com/video/v/gdKUcF5RPoA/THOUSANDS-OF-BIRDS-FALL-DEAD-(-SOUTH-AMERICA-)-Could-it-be-related-to-7.0-in-Argentina? “

“This article is highly misleading, as it only looks are the USGS records for the last six months. Going back there are MANY incidents on the USGS web site of 5000 or more birds. Example 10/15/1999 – Sangamon Co – 27,000 birds.

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/quarterly_reports/

“ In Australia this phenomenon occurs yearly. I don’t know if these birds are migratory birds, but here is what was reported last year:

 http://www.ecovoice.com.au/eco-news/1071-dead-birds-on-beaches-natural

Next a post from someone in the area who puts forward the hypothesis I included in the first piece:

“I live in Arkansas. In the NW part of the state. I have read on other sites where they suggest a concussion of some sort from hail or possibly hit by lightning. What I can tell you is we had some very nasty storms come through new years eve (in the NW part of the state, Bebee is more toward the eastern part of the state, central and east), but Im sure the storms probably made it over there. We had very severe weather, in fact just miles from my house an entire small town was wiped out from a tornado. So this suggestion is plausible.”

On the fringe side of things there was a lot of mention of chemtrails, government black ops technology projects, UFO’s and the biblical end of days. Below is the one interesting post from the fringe, although I know nothing about the EUTimes.net so I’m not going to credit the source as valid in any way, again for you to consider:

Run for cover…Americgeddon is upon us!

http://www.eutimes.net/2011/01/top-us-official-murdered-after-arkansas-weapons-test-causes-mass-death/

Mystery Bird Death, the sky is falling in Arkansas and Louisiana, and fish too!

So unless you’ve been in a bunker over the last few days you have probably heard about the over 1000 (some estimate 5000) birds who died suddenly in Arkansas and then the sudden death of around a 1000 birds yesterday in Louisiana.  In case you are just coming out of that bunker, here’s a link to the story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/04/apocalypse-mystery-bird-deaths-louisiana

The story, sans the title, is actually a pretty balanced examination of the two events without some of the hyperbole I’ve been seeing on cable news coverage.  Yeah, I know, cable news blowing something out of proportion, couldn’t happen, yes that was sarcasm.

On a parallel note there have been several major fish kills as well in the last few days but the answer that came out about these is very accurate.  The Maryland kill is highly likely to be caused by temperature fluctuations and because the Arkansas kill was limited to a single species it is very likely to be disease related.  During the winter as fish school up in deep pools a disease can spread very quickly and produce mass, single-species kills.

The birds are a much bigger mystery however, the necropsies of the birds seem to indicate blunt force trauma causing massive internal injuries.  This is highly suggestive of birds being disoriented and crashing into solid structures, however if you see how far the birds were stretched it seems odd that somehow they hit solid objects and then flew a quarter-mile.  I believe it is much more likely that the Arkansas birds were killed when they encountered a hail storm, this seems the most likely cause.  Hail at high altitude could have hit a large flock and killed thousands of birds, this would not be completely unusual.

In fact in January of 2007 there were near simultaneous large bird die offs in both Australia and the United States.  There were also large storm systems within a couple of days of the deaths, indicating that perhaps the birds were pummeled by the incoming front prior to it dumping precipitation to the ground.   You can read more about the die offs three years ago at the following link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-427997/Dead-birds-rain-towns-half-world-apart.html

Finally, hell we’d be remiss if we didn’t scream, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.”  That was fun!  And I think we have to leave the door open for more sinister possibilities from these kills.  Could this be a test of a new biological or aerosol dispersed chemical weapon, very possibly so, in fact in Arkansas they immediately did air sampling to check for this very thing and found nothing, stay tuned as information comes in on this we’ll keep you posted.

An Economic View of BP, the Oil Spill and the Gulf of Mexico

To quote Fred McCallister of Allegiance Capital Corporation while on CNN earlier this week, “BP is doing what’s in the best interest of BP and its shareholders.”  This should not come as a shock to anyone but it’s nice to actually hear someone say it on a national news broadcast.  Let’s take a deeper look at what that really means though.

The size of the spill determines the fine

 This explains why BP initially downplayed the size of the leak and has consistently underestimated the number of barrels per hour pumping out of the broken pipe.  British Petroleum already faces up to 14 billion dollars in civil penalties, payable under US environmental law, assuming the leak is plugged in August.  The size of these fines are directly linked to the size of the spill which is quickly becoming the largest in US history,  with BP liable for over $4,000 for each barrel spilt.  So in a nut shell, the fewer the barrels of oil reported to have been spilled, the smaller the fine.

Spreading out oil over time allows amortization of costs

A disturbing idea but one that seems to have merit, the use of dispersants sinks the oil so that it does not come to the surface or end up on beaches immediately, instead it will sink and wash up over time on the beaches as tar balls, thus increasing the size of the spill over time instead of all at once, read more at:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/02/96959/why-so-few-skimmers-at-the-oil.html

Given the financial advantage to using dispersants it is no surprise that BP refused to stop using the most available dispersant even when the EPA told them to stop.  British Petroleum is not worried about toxicity or long-term environmental impact, what’s important to BP is their bottom line, you can read more at:

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0524/bp-ignores-order-stop-dumping-toxic-oil-dispersant-gulf/

Finally, the dollar figure for BP will escalate as: private citizens sue over health issues; environmental groups sue on behalf of the environment of the gulf; fishers sue over the damage to fishing grounds; and tourism and other industries sue for lost business.  It is not inconceivable that BP is looking at 60 – 70 billion dollars in fines and law suit damages; given that the company’s profits for 2008 and 2009 totaled approximately 40 billion dollars, this is a company in trouble.  Were the fines and lawsuits to happen all at once they’d be done, just one more reason to do what they can to work on making this all spread out over time.

In the end it’s simple, BP will only do what it has to do and will focus on doing what’s best for BP and to hell with the environment, the animals and people of the Gulf of Mexico.

Bill Clinton advocates blowing up BP well to stop oil spill

On CNN today Bill Clinton expressed his opinion that the number one priority needs to be shutting off the leak.  “Blow it up” he said, he remarked that no nuclear weapon would be needed but that this well should be blown up and buried under rock and debris.  Given that any help from the relief wells is at least a month away and the containment dome is not currently in place, maybe this is the right solution.  It is as Clinton stated, the one tool fully within the control of the US Government.

I have no faith however that this will happen, we’ll wait to see what happens with the relief wells and if they don’t work we’ll sit around and chat until we finally come back to the conclusion our former president has already arrived at.  Given that hurricane Alex will move even more oil onto the shores of the Gulf of Mexico this week, isn’t it time we really proactively consider stopping this leak!?!

Of course we’re asking this question of two groups, BP and the federal government.  British Petroleum is the company that claimed in its environmental impact statement that they would protect non-existent walruses in the gulf.  In partnership of course with a federal government whose representatives read the environmental impact statement about protecting walruses and was too stupid or incompetent to challenge the statement.  I wonder if it’s appropriate to call mutual incompetence collusion?

If this is true, BP may lead the United States into Depression

Hello friends, what I have for you tonight, if it is true, is nothing short of terrifying.  The following link that I provide: http://beforeitsnews.com/story/76/057/Scientists_Warn_Gulf_Of_Mexico_Sea_Floor_Fractured_Beyond_Repair.htmldescribes    reports  Anatoly Sagalevitch from the Russian Academy of Sciences as saying that the Gulf of Mexico leak is much worse than we have been told.  In fact the report suggests that the well is not able to be capped, leaving only two options.  Option 1 let the well run dry, which could take as much as 30 years, or seal it with a nuclear bomb.  During the Soviet era the Russians on five occasions used controlled underground nuclear explosions to cap wells.  As a matter of fact, in May the Russian newspaper, Komsomoloskaya Pravda, made this very suggestion.

This is a calamity of amazing proportions if it is true!  First off imagine the outcry of even suggesting detonating a nuclear weapon so close to the shore of the United States.  The political fight over that alone should be an amazing show.  If we do this detonation, what size wave will that throw against the gulf shore?  What type of contamination will the blast inflict upon the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico and how long will they take to recover?  On the economic front, should the blast be called for we can call an end to oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, is that Saudi Arabia I hear cheering?  Considering that the report says that oil is leaking from twenty-two separate sites along the sea floor I wonder how many barrels of oil per day are actually leaking out, the count has risen from the original 1000 barrels a day to the most current estimate of  up to 40,000 barrels a day.  This spill is already the third largest of all time and if this report is true, it will quickly become the largest oil spill in the history of mankind and the worst ecological disaster the Gulf of Mexico has ever seen.

The implications are far-reaching from the impact on shrimping, oyster and fishing industries including impacting the Blue Fin Tuna fleets of the northeastern US coast as the area impacted is the birthing and raising ground of these fish.  As we enter hurricane season who on the gulf isn’t terrified that a major storm will come through and throw massive amounts of crude onto the shore and into the sensitive wetlands of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

The economic implications of this report are beyond alarming.  If we are forced to nuke this well shut, then drilling in the gulf stops and we become much more highly dependent upon foreign oil.  Oil prices will rise quickly and we will see $4 a gallon gas soon, or will it be $5, or $6 a gallon gas?  When oil prices raced past $100 a barrel and domestic gas prices above $4 a gallon our expanding economy suddenly stopped and reversed itself sending us and our financial system on a crash course with depression.  We narrowly avoided that depression and somewhat stabilized our economy, but with the European financial issues we’ve seen serious volatility in our markets.  Nuke this well in the gulf and I fear that the next great depression is a certainty.

BP adds a condom to the gusher but it leaks!

So BP’s latest attempt to reduce the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is once again a containment dome.  But like a young lover who first failed to fit the condom BP has returned with a new and improved containment dome.  This one has ventilated ribs for the gulf’s pleasure!  Ok, so technically we have the first set up all over again, except this time they used the ROV’s to cut the pipe so that the cap would fit better and additionally have vented the dome so that there would be some pressure release.  The pressure being released keeps frozen hydrates from forming and clogging the line to the ship on the surface.  Definitely a technical improvement over the last failed attempt use of a containment dome but as BP has admitted, will at best siphon off 20-30% of the flow leaving hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico each day until the relief wells are finished.  The oil will continue to flow into the ocean currents, fish feeding and breeding grounds, and now onto the shores and the marshes of some of our most productive economic and ecologically important shores.

Like any lover who realizes his condom has leaked, the new “most hated man in America”, BP CEO Tony Hayward has become incredibly apologetic, he feels terrible about his leak and has promised to take care of all of the consequences.  In the meantime, BP has pumped a hundred million dollars in ad time onto TV, which honestly may give us a break in California from having to see Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman ads every four seconds.

We are now seeing the oil come ashore into the wetlands and onto the beaches of the gulf, pictures are starting to emerge of oil covered birds and large fish kills.  Folks, this is about to get very ugly and no amount of ad time is going to help BP out of this mess, it will take years for people to forgive and somewhat forget, but unfortunately we will, I mean when is the last time you heard about an Exxon boycott because of what happened with the Valdez disaster.

So we sit mesmerized by the live footage of the spill and watch the horror unfolding for the people, plants and animals of the gulf and wait to see what new hell hurricane season can bring them.  We’ve got three months before the relief wells are finished, and that’s assuming they are delay free, meaning that no hurricanes make them suspend operations for a time, good luck with that one.

BP tries to be a top but turns out to be a bottom!

In a turn of events that would make a leather clad biker in the Castro blush it turns out BP is a bottom.  I know, I know, how is that possible, the biggest baddest oil company on the planet, billions of dollars in profits and assets, damn near world domination on a corporate level they have to be a top!  So, here is the scene, major public screw up, failed Haliburton fornication fix (see my previous post on BP & Haliburton) and now a top kill, how butch is that!

Unfortunately for our wanna be top, the top kill has failed!  Like any prideful top it took BP some time to admit the failure, hey it happens to everyone once in a while, right?  But after the initial failure, BP took a break, (was that a little blue pill I saw them swallowing), they returned with a vengeance to top that open hole!  Then after a second failure, they grudgingly admitted it was time to move on to other options.  Like a lonely sailor after a failed one night stand BP did not even have the courage to face us and say they failed, how rude.

So now they will use a sealed containment dome, wait, containment dome isn’t that what failed on their first attempt?  Sure was, the difference was that last time the dome wasn’t sealed.  It wasn’t sealed because BP didn’t just want to stop the flow, but wanted to funnel the oil into a flexible tube and pump it onto a tanker ship.  So, now they are just willing to cap the hole, gee, why didn’t they try that back when it failed the first time, why not seal the top and relower it?  Probably because the chance of success is not nearly the 60 or 70% chance that BP gave us for success on the latest debacle.

Maybe it’s just me but I’m starting to think maybe Obama, the US Coast Guard or better yet, the entire state of Louisiana ought to top BP just to show em how it’s done!
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