Oceanographic satellite data now shows that as of July 28, the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled as a consequence of the BP oil spill disaster. This according to Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, an Italian theoretical physicist, and major complex and chaotic systems analyst at the Frascati National Laboratories in Italy.

BP plans to claim almost $10 billion in U.S. tax credit as a direct result of the Gulf oil spill. “This is the accounting process, we are going by U.S. laws.” *** [Wow. What arrogance.]

The latest version of the CLEAR Act is slated for a floor vote in the House this week as Democrats look for ways to use the Gulf oil spill as a means to pass elements of their unpopular energy agenda. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stripped out authorization for an independent investigation into the Gulf disaster. “It defies common sense that this amendment passed unanimously in committee, only to be deleted in the Speaker’s office.” The bill also sets up myriad regulations and new standards and laws for drilling that have nothing to do with offshore drilling. [See United Nations Agenda 21 and the National Ocean Council for more information - see link]

The wellhead, located about 65 miles (104 kilometers) south of New Orleans, was ruptured when it was struck by a dredge barge being pulled by a tug, reportedly sending crude spewing some 20 feet into the air.

Last week ended with some promising news on finally stopping the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, the administration still seems to believe that shutting down working oil wells is a higher priority than effectively dealing with the broken one. They are again issuing a moratorium on off-shore drilling, while maintaining a de facto ban on new permits even for shallow water drilling, which they previously stated would be unaffected. The courts have twice declared this unconstitutional, over 70 percent of the people see this as unreasonable, yet the administration seems determined to simply end off-shore drilling, at least for those producers that cannot afford to sit idle for an unknown period of time until the ban is lifted.

I guess if you’re doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center. Why do they need a fake photo at all? Don’t they have a real crisis response center they could have used?
Also, an astute reader noticed that the meta info for the photo says it was created in 2001, not July 16, 2010 as claimed on BP’s site. It looks like BP took a photo from 2001, and in order to make it look like the command center in July of 2010, they pasted pictures of the oil well leaking over the old photo.

News Five collected samples of water and sand from Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Katrina Key and Dauphin Island. To our eyes, the samples appeared normal. The sample from Orange Beach was taken where kids were playing in the sand and recorded 221 ppm. The normal rate? 5 ppm.

The sample from Dauphin Island exploded in the laboratory.

Democratic lawmakers want to know if BP is paying off Louisiana shrimpers with “blood money” flowing from a dirty deal to free the Lockerbie bomber in exchange for Libyan oil. British Justice Minister Jack Straw wrote that at a time when Libya was holding up the BP contracts, it was “in the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom” to include Megrahi in the prisoner transfer deal. Freed a year ago when he supposedly only had three months to live, the convicted terrorist is now living in luxury in Tripoli.

The Ella G, once an offshore supply barge, has been refitted to skim and separate oil spilling from BP PLC’s blown-out well. The oil is sent through a centrifuge system on the ship that separates the oil and water. Normally, the oily water has to be taken to a receiving point for separation, so doing that at sea is more efficient. It set sail for the first time Thursday and can stay at sea indefinitely.

With the first tar balls from the Gulf oil spill now washing ashore in Galveston, Texas, Rep. Ron Paul, whose district includes the affected area, said Monday the federal government is not doing enough in the recovery effort. “If all our states had their Guard units back here maybe they would have the manpower to do more to help clean up the beaches and prevent the oil from coming in, but, no, our Guard units are all over the world fighting wars we don’t need,” said Paul, a critic of the U.S. deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. *** Embedded Video of Interview