BP oil spill update

Well, It is now 69 days into the Deep water horizon oil spill, What's happening?

• BP's Oil cap is still in place although the amount of oil collected is less than half than is leaking from the sea floor.

• The efficiency of the whole oil collection operation is still in question. Never mind that an underwater robot is somehow able to knock off the cap, while filming! There is no emergency plan if a storm were to come near the operation, Even though it is hurricane season and there is a tropical storm(alex) on the way; Official procedure is just to abandon collection of oil if there is a storm.

• BP has replaced their CEO in a futile attempt to placate the American public. After BP CEO Tony Hayward's recent inconsiderate remarks about the spill "eating up his personal time", being caught on his luxury yatch sipping mohitos in the heat of the crisis, and his frankly awful gaffe at the hearing in congress
  
  
  
  , and not to mention unleashing the obama on himself, the British dude had to go. He was replaced by a man who BP calls a real "southern guy" someone who was "affected" by the spill like the rest of us, Mr. Bob Dudley

• There have been attempts from the US. to gain more control. BP has been essentially forced to not pay dividends to its shareholders and set up an independent entity with 20 billion dollars in funds for compensation

• Their public repoire has gotten so low that their own twitter account is supposedly being eclipsed by one dedicated to mocking them.They are on a very weak limb and can be pushed around by anyone marginally influential. Kevin Costner was able to get BP to buy 32 of his crap centrifuge things that separate oil from water. They were basically badgered into submission for alabama , florida and louisiana for money to be used in advertisments(stupid ones at that)
  
  
  
  Alabama's Gulf Coast - Lucy Buffett Tourism Spot

• BP is still a Supermajor oil company, Even with all the money they are supposed to be shelling out, They will still be at a profit.The company is probably still run with finances being the first and foremost priority.
  
  The gulf is seemingly first and foremost a financial headache, then a legal one and then maybe a social one. That is why for example when a crowd-sourcing effort such as InnoCentive comes up with nearly 1000 usable ideas for review on a task that BP itself set up for them. The Oil giant can totally ignore the effort with only the feeblest excuse and not be straying from its goals.
  
  
• Its gotten so bad that people are starting to question BP's Value. Gulf Fund Administrator, Kenneth Feinberg might say that there is no sense bankrupting BP but that stand point along with other related ones are now questionable.
  
  Should we continue pressuring British Petroleum even though we are causing damage to the cooperation? Should America begin planning on seizing BP assets in America(in case BP wont pay) to ensure that the damage to the gulf is fixed even though this might (at least temporarily) actually bankrupt the company? Should the US government have put a moratorium on deep sea drilling to re-assess the dangers involved and revamp regulation in the sector even though we are now putting some hurt on an already fragile industrial sector?e.t.c.

UPDATE: The flow of oil in the well has now been officially really capped

Well, the US and England made it into the round of 16.


I understand some of the anger that American fans have at the football referee who called a foul just before the U.S. team scored. I even think that the foul really was commited in the match aganist Slovenia but commentary from the ESPN coverage was douchy and slightly asshold-like.

World Cup: blaming the 'incompetent African'

I would hope that future criticism would be restricted to non-flammatory,non-arsenine comments that don't insinuate that african referres are by and large 'third rate' and were included in the world cup just for political correctness.

Mind you that in their match aganist Algeria, the same thing happened to the demsey player(8) and i did not hear a peep aganist the Belgian refs.

That being said, I am uber excited about tommorows match of USA vs. Ghana. I would like to cheer for the US. but I just have to support the only african team now in the world cup.

Go Ghana!

BP HQ.

USA! USA! USA!

There appears to be alot of briton blowback that is on the side of British Petrolium. The british seemingly dont want BP to have to pay for damages in the Gulf. They are wary of any US. governmental pressure on "Their Company" and some of them even want the U.S. government to finance cleaning up the Gulf instead of BP.

The language and rhetoric of this dispute is going into the danger zone, is becoming too highly personalized. The interpretation over here, not just by me but others, is that it has a certain anti-British rhetoric to it — and that has to be of concern,

John Napier

You want the oil, America ......You clean up the Mess!!

South Carlifornia Public Radio

The British government's response so far has been much more measured. Speaking on a visit to Afghanistan, new Prime Minister David Cameron said he understood the U.S. government's frustration over the spill. But then the famously jingoistic Daily Mail newspaper ran a front-page headline that read, "Stand up for your country, Mr. Cameron."


The mood was heightened further by suggestions from Washington that BP should suspend its dividend to shareholders; some British news outlets say that will be announced next week.


NPR

The Labour party is seemingly deeply involved in the lobbying for BP in the name of the pensioners in britain and other people investing in the Oil giant. It is however still quite a far way for BP to the end of the crisis though. They still have to cap the leak and also pony up for damages.

It is with all this political upheaval that the World cup match of USA Vs. England occurs, Tomorrow at 1:30 Central time.

What do the Yanks have to say?

We Kicked Redcoat Ass at Yorktown, We’ll Kick Redcoat Ass in South Africa


Moondog

Landon Donovan, The U.S. captain has cranked up the USA's bid to beat England today by claiming the Yanks don't fear any team at the World Cup.

There's no reason why we can't compete with England. If we give ourselves a chance to make plays and we make them, we can beat them.

Donovan

All I can think of is what George Washington said

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind banished from the earth.

So lets whoop their farking asses!
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!!!!!!

Effects of Mystiscism and Religious fervor

Found this on a casual Bing search , This event happened in 2009 but I just had to post the video. Seriously fucked up if you ask me.

Five people suspected to be witchcrafts were bruterly murded in kisii Nyamataro Village after the accused them of possession of charms.

video

Why to Live

Why do we have to live?

In my philosophical quandries, I have thought up this question and I cannot for the life of me produce a convincing universal argument for this query. Of course My question is unanswerrable since it automatically assumes that in each and every scenario possible, The Human involved has to live.But in reality, Nobody has to live; you could get a 9 and put it on your noggin. It is not likely that you will continue to live. As such, There is no solution to this query since the underlying premise is false.So maybe i should rephrase my question

Why we should strive to live?

Why should we wake up each and every day and labour extensively to keep on existing? We all share some basic fears that help keep us living. The fear of death, fear of the unkown, fear of the afterlife e.t.c. These fears act as a negative reinforcement against giving up on life. But is there any positive cause that can help push a person into deciding to keep on living? is there any cause that encourage us to continue with life? Of course, there are many personal reasons or answers to this question. We all have dreams, aspirations, goals, commitments and many other ties to our existence that keep us moving or striving on for more life. For example, I want to single handedly revolutionize Africa to be on par with the western nations,I want to make east africa to be an economic powerhouse able to create and sustain growth at levels comparable to European countries and the USA. I want to make Kenya rich and keep it stable. I want to elevate the Kikuyu tribe to be more than just a tribal entity but a social, political, economic and corporeal group. I want to make Mbari ya Njagi super cool, and achieve super awesome things, I love my family and would want more power for them. These thing keep me tied to life, they are the fire on my backside, spurring me on to keep living and to keep striving.

Is there anything like this that can be applied universally to all humans to argue that all of them should keep on striving to live?

I am not naive enough to think that my goals can be applied to anyone else. Of course, some people share goals, dreams and ideals. I am probably not the only one trying to improve africa or east africa. I am not the only Kikuyu that is working to better the status of the tribe, My brother, sister, mother and father are all doing their level best to improve Mbari ya Njagi. But some dreams are not shared, everybody has some unique dream or aspiration in their life, for example nobody in my family shares my dreams of participating in rallying or race car driving, I dare venture to say that nobody in the whole of mobile, Alabama even thinks about going to Nyandarua, Kenya or Mucharage, Kenya to go swimming and mud bogging in the rivers there. Nobody in the entire world regularly daydreams about marrying a specific girl(who I wont name)in Kenya and then touring the US. and Kenya in an RV. Nobody does.

The world is so diverse that I cannot think of a single thing that is universally strived for. You might say happiness is a universal ideal but not everybody is looking for it, Some people are all too pleased to cause calamity and disaster. You might say that peace is the universal goal but some people derive profit,satisfaction and happiness from violence or war. You might say it is Order but i personally know more than one anarchist who will disagree with you profusely, You might think that everyone wants sunny skies but some people are actually praying for rain. This might go on and on for eternity and in the end would turn out fruitless.

Is there any clear goal, dream, aspiration or ideal that can be applied universally to all humans to argue that all of them individually should keep on striving to live?

No, there is not. If I find one, I will have to update this article.





P.S:I try to update the blog as often as possible but as always when i try to document my ideas, they seem to get stuck in my head or in rough draft form ,uncharacterisable and unrecognisable to others. I thought that I would try to experiment with shorter posts but I don't want to turn my blog into something like twitter where half baked ideas coupled with irrational human impulsiveness has created a garrishly fickle social catastrophe.