Big Things in LA

There is no Los Angeles...

Aquaman Fail--Bring in Namor

Well, Aquaman seems to have failed to stop the BP Oil Gusher.
But you can't trust those DC Comic Characters.
So maybe we need to turn to Marvel's Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner and Prince of Atlantis.
Surely the Savage Prince can defend his undersea home from the man-made nightmare beneath the waves. Maybe if Sue Storm asks him nice he would help us.

ABChallenge

A: Challenge

B: The Person To

C: Possibilities

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D: Echoes: Collage Message by J:

Dr Strange has closed worse fissures

Dr Strange has closed worse fissures than the Gulf Gusher.
Here he is attempting to close some multi-dimensional rift that threatened reality itself in the 1970s.
So if Kirk and Spock (or Data and Geordie) aren't available, maybe we can summon Dr Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth to come to our defense?

"The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

A prominent Houston attorney with a long record of winning settlements from oil companies says he has new evidence suggesting that the Deepwater Horizon's top managers knew of problems with the rig before it exploded last month, causing the worst oil spill in US history. Tony Buzbee, a lawyer representing 15 rig workers and dozens of shrimpers, seafood restaurants, and dock workers, says he has obtained a three-page signed statement from a crew member on the boat that rescued the burning rig's workers. The sailor, who Buzbee refuses to name for fear of costing him his job, was on the ship's bridge when Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell, a top employee of rig owner Transocean, was speaking with someone in Houston via satellite phone. Buzbee told Mother Jones that, according to this witness account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."
Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm Harrell down. "I am fucking calm," he went on, according to Buzbee. "You realize the rig is burning?"
At that point, the boat's captain asked Harrell to leave the bridge. It wasn't clear whether Harrell had been talking to Transocean, BP, or someone else.
...
Other rig workers have also claimed that they were pressured by BP and their supervisors to cut corners. Transocean roustabout Truitt Crawford told the Coast Guard that he overheard senior management saying that BP was "taking shortcuts" by replacing drilling mud in the well with saltwater, which would have provided less weight to contain the well's surging pressure. Transocean's Williams told 60 Minutes that a supervisor had dismissed evidence that the well's blowout preventer had been damaged. And workers with Halliburton, the well's cementing contractor, had complained that BP's use of cement "was against our best practices" and told the oil company that it would likely have "a SEVERE gas flow problem" unless the well's casings were centered more carefully.

-- From Mother Jones
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Echoes: Never underestimate the ability of corporate executives to override good engineers, usually in the pursuit of lower costs and higher profits.

We need Kirk and Spock

Apparently, the ship sucking up leaking oil from the BP Gusher is named the Discoverer Enterprise. They are sucking up oil and gas and burning off the methane gas from a large pipe stuck off the edge of the ship.

I think if Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock were on this Enterprise, they would figure out a way to stop this gusher.

Dr. Joye, from the University of Georgia, is researching underwater oil plumes in the Gulf oil spill. I got the photo above from her blog, which she is posting to from a research vessel in the Gulf. They are trying to track these giant under-water plumes. Please visit the Gulf Oil Blog for details.

I think Rachel Maddow is doing some of the best reporting on this gusher on TV.

I think no one has sufficiently summed up just how risky and ultimately unrewarding this whole underwater drilling activity is for our civilization and our planet. I've seen analysis that predicts that all the underwater drilling that can ever be done will only extend our global supply of oil by 6 months or so. I'm not sure that is worth it.

Astronaut Noir

Snail Doodle

From the iPhone

Persistence of Ghosts

The Persistence of Ghosts
Illustration by Jay Bird

Still Life with Still Alive

From the iPhone.

View from the Couch

Stuck on the couch with a cold.
Watching too much TV.
And hoping this thing runs it's course
As quickly as possible.

From the iPhone.

Message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients

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Echoes: A Proximity Collage

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, becomes...
British Petroleum, becomes...
Beyond Petroleum, becomes...
A Slow Motion Nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico.
But does it still smell so sweet?

Apparently relief wells are the only proven method for stopping underwater oil gushers.
And they take 3 to 10 months to complete.
But I am sure that within the next 24-48 hours BP will have thought of some other distraction to occupy the press. And that will give them 24-48 hours to come up with the next distraction.

Maybe one of these long shot maneuvers will work. But I find it interesting that Canada requires off-shore drilling to include the simultaneous drilling of a relief well, because relief wells are the only proven method for stopping underwater oil gushers.

Some Days Off Are Like This...

...Some Days Off Are Nothing Like This

Susceptible

Life, I am told,
Is just life
Living its life.
So the fact
That it makes me
Want to laugh
And want to cry
Must be just me
Susceptible to life.
Or so I tell myself.
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Echoes: Words and pictures
Expressing words and pictures
Like Jay Birds