The Well Oiled Man Hayward Goes Yachting As Gulf of Mexico Dies

Now that I have effectively turned this blog into Gawker, I might as well take one more crack at the well heeled aristocracy. Today’s jet setting celebrity is none other than BP Big Man Dr. Anthony Bryan Hayward, CCMI. Better known to us “small people” here in the States as Tony Hayward, CEO of the corporate criminal BP, one of big oil’s supermajors.

And what has Anthony Bryan Hayward, CCMI been up to lately you ask? Well like all the finest jet set playahs in summertime, he has been yachting:

Embattled BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward took a break from manning the massive Gulf Coast oil spill Saturday to attend a posh yacht race in England.

“It’s a well-known event in the British calendar. He’s entitled to private time with his family,” said BP spokesman Robert Wine.

Hayward — who infamously quipped that he’d like the devastating spill stopped so he could “get (his) life back” — was watching his boat “Bob” in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race Saturday off the Isle of Wight.

Guess Big Man Tony got his life back. Unfortunately, Aaron Dale Burkeen and the other men on Deepwater Horizon will never get their lives back. Eleven of them no longer even have a life to get back, having perished in the burning and exploding hell of Hayward’s Macondo inferno.

Meanwhile, back at the Gulf shore of the United States, things are going swimmingly. Well, swimming in oil anyway. The Gulf oil spill is a hole in the world; as Naomi Klein says in a brooding but fantastic article in today’s Guardian:

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is not just an industrial accident – it is a violent wound inflicted on the Earth itself.

Indeed. Oh, and the gross quantities of methane and crude oil gushing forth at ever increasing flow volume from the mouth of hell Macondo well could create “dead zones” where oxygen is so depleted that nothing lives. And there is enough oil in the vast Macondo reservoir to keep spewing oil at the current rate for two to four years, maybe longer. So we Yanks have that going for us as Big Shot Tony goes yacht clubbing with his sleek racing sloop, the “Bob”, in the posh and prestigious J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Isle of Wight Race.

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169 replies
    • Zorba66 says:

      I wish I could believe that the citizens would “rise up” in honest indignation (I don’t necessarily mean “storming the Bastille” or rolling out the guillotines type of indignation). But the American people have shown a tendency for far too long to vote against their own self-interests and believe whatever the elites are shoveling. Unfortunately.

  1. BoxTurtle says:

    It was probably the most productive thing he could do. At least he’s not hanging over some poor engineers shoulder screaming “Do SOMETHING! Find SOMETHING to do!”

    I’m betting that those with better political instincts at BP moaned like lost souls when this hit the wire.

    Boxturtle (We should help Tony out. How about a contest to find a better name for his yacht?)

    • Synoia says:

      Boxturtle (We should help Tony out. How about a contest to find a better name for his yacht?)

      Macondo?

  2. sailmaker says:

    He finished 4th in class, 355th over all ( 06:16:15 lasped time), beaten in class by a “J” class boat (1933) and a Swan 65 (1977). Not much of a showing for a Farr 52 in a 50 mile race. Link. Tony was probably all jet lagged (pictures show him (maybe, hard to tell with the foul weather gear) at the helm).

    I wonder if any of the robber barons is capable of getting BP out this gooey mess? Santa Barbara and Alaska have not fully recovered from their “spills” and those were miniscule compared to this one.

  3. posaune says:

    grreat picture, bmaz.

    This really is a class issue, you know.
    The ultra rich trashing the world for profits and leading dissociated lives.

    The People are going to have to learn this and understand it before they rise up (and IF they rise up).
    So, go for it, bmaz! This is great.

    • Margaret says:

      he don’t have a lick o’sense — How did he get to be BP’s head honcho?

      You answered your own question Ellie!

    • BoxTurtle says:

      How did he get to be BP’s head honcho?

      He made them money. He likely never had to go off script before now, and for anything beyond pre-written speeches he had an entire PR dept to do his bidding.

      His lack of political sense may or may not have been known prior to his selection, but up until now it hasn’t been an issue.

      Imagine how his pet congresscritters feel. “I WANT to be friends to you and your money, but it’s impossible to do so publically currently. And you’re not helping”.

      Boxturtle (Can Barton eat enough humble pie to keep his committee seat?)

    • bobschacht says:

      He’s got a relevant Ph.D. in geology, I believe.

      I know lots of Ph.D.s who are lousy at Public Relations. Like most of us, he’s probably very good at some things, and lousy at others.

      My guess is that the Peter Principle was at work.

      Bob in AZ

  4. Margaret says:

    I was just about to go off topic to link to this story below. Thanks for saving me from the blogger etiquette faux pas. :-)

  5. Surtt says:

    How can you blame him for enjoying the ocean while he can?
    By next year the oil will have made it into the gulf stream and polluted the English waters too.

    • Margaret says:

      If the sinking oil doesn’t shut down the thermal conveyor. If that happens, people won’t be enjoying yachting off the English coast. Sledding maybe…

      • Phoenix Woman says:

        That’s what I’ve been trying to warn one of my UK Tory buddies: This is going to screw you beyond what you can currently imagine right now, and you’re kissing up to the people that did it?!?!

        • Margaret says:

          Conservative = a certain degree of sociopath. They don’t care as long as there’s no impact on them.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Failure is not what causes people to learn, it is overcoming it that we learn from. Never failing would suggest that like BP, Mr. Hayward’s learning curve is flat, or its slope has been turned negative owing to the successes of his lobbyists.

    • bmaz says:

      “If you knew you could not fail, what would you try?”

      Well I don’t know; however gross profiteering from destroying the earth’s ecosystem would not be at the top of the list.

  6. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Yachting round the Isle of Wight, or rather watching competent sailors sail the boat he or his tax advisers paid for while sipping bubbly and chatting up others doing the same, is oh, so Victorian.

    Mr. Hayward seems to mimic, too, the Victorian era’s attitude toward conservation – it’s what poor people do to make ends meet; the environment takes care of itself, as does the upper class.

    • Margaret says:

      Mr. Hayward seems to mimic, too, the Victorian era’s attitude toward conservation – it’s what poor people do to make ends meet; the environment takes care of itself, as does the upper class.

      Which is why Republicans are so quick to defend him. They’re peas in a pod.

  7. darkblack says:

    How reassuring to see the Farce is still strong over at the BP Publicity department.

    “no matter where he is, he is always in touch with what is happening within BP”

    As for being at the helm:

    Peta Stuart-Hunt, a press officer for the event, said Hayward “wasn’t listed on any of the crew list.” She said she could not immediately who was on the crew list.

    “If he is on the boat, he’s in contravention of the rules,” she said.

    ;>)

    • rosalind says:

      “If he is on the boat, he’s in contravention of the rules,” she said.

      AP Photo Caption: “BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, center, sits aboard his yacht Bob during the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race on Saturday. The race, one of the world’s largest, takes place off England’s Isle of Wight. Click through for more photos.”

      The BP Chief Exec willfully violating the rules? What’re the odds…

      (don’t know how long the photo will stay up. i read somewhere else AP has pulled it saying they can’t be sure it is he aboard the boat)

    • Mason says:

      “If he is on the boat, he’s in contravention of the rules,” she said.

      That would not contraindicate that yonder yacht should be rechristened the Locus In Quo.

  8. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Mr. Hayward would do more to manage the pollution his company is causing in the Gulf if he were to skipper his sailboat round that Gulf for the next year, filming as he looks for a clean beach, bird and bay. His food should be limited to what he can catch and his freshwater should be limited to what he can take aboard from nearby rivers and streams.

  9. cwolf says:

    Shit, England will never extradite Lord Tony for those murders.

    We’ll just have to [Edited by Moderator. Please no wishes for violence – not even rhetorically] his ass & hope we don’t take our any countesses.

  10. Hmmm says:

    Just in from the Worst Case Scenario Department.

    I may have to reconsider the viability of my peace plan to relocate the Gazans (or, in the alternative, the Israelis) to Florida.

    On the positive side, the southern states would make up a significantly smaller share of the House. /s

      • Margaret says:

        Back to badmouthing Texas are we? Why is it that we are the only state in which progressives are held responsible for having the bad judgment to happen to live in a state with a right wing majority? I never hear anybody talking about giving New Jersey back to England because of Christie or making Virginia secede because of Cooch and his boss. People here never suggest that California go back to Russia for Ahnold’s election or indeed even Alaska returning to them because of Sarah Palin. What is it that people have against Texas? REAL Texans are some of the friendliest, most hospitable people in the country. Chances are if you see a winger cowboy in Texas, he or she came from somewhere else.

        • fatster says:

          Actually, I think that’s California back to Mexico.

          And while we’re at it, why don’t we just return the entire hemisphere to the people who were occupying it prior to that fateful day in 1492 when Columbus stepped ashore and the slaughter commenced?

          As for Texans, you are quite correct. Jim Hightower is a treasure, Molly certainly was, and who can ever forget the great Barbara Jordan, to name just a few.

          • Hmmm says:

            Actually you’re both right: Mexico would get the south part, and Russia would get the north part.

            And I owe you a drinkie-poo for the Jim & Molly, Lovie.

        • Hmmm says:

          What is it that people have against Texas?

          I appreciate your obvious pride, and I’m totally with you on the personal generosity and hospitality — have family from TX and help put on a conference there every year — but really, my friend: A-frickin’-hem:

          – Halliburton
          – Enron
          – ClearCom
          – Bush (family mainline)
          – Cornyn
          – DeLay
          – Discriminatory sodomy laws
          – No property tax = few public services
          – Textbook commissions
          – Holstered guns
          – Widespread authoritarian attitudes
          – Widespread conformist attitudes
          – Widespread anti-immigrant attitudes (my grandpa was Mexican)
          – Widespread racist attitudes
          – DFW and Houston

          On the other hand, there are:

          – Austin which is still weird
          – The late Molly Ivins
          – The missing Jim Hightower
          – The sadly dissapated Church of the SubGenius
          – Myriad surpassingly excellent musicians
          Coastal birdwatching (oopsie)

          • bmaz says:

            Nolan Ryan was a stud. I loved JR Ewing and Dallas; that was greasy fun. The girls there are often quite hot. Galveston can be fun. Okay, now I am running out of good items….

            • scribe says:

              Actually, when you get a couple Texans together, they can be and often are a heck of a lot of fun. Hospitality is one of their strongest virtues. They make great barbeque. It’s easy to find a place that will serve you a great steak for a reasonable price.

              It’s just when the number of Texans exceeds two or three that they start in on the whole “Bigger and better in Texas” thing (especially how they work the volume knob), various flavors of wingnuttery (E.g., “We’ll give him a fair trial in the morning and then take him out back and hang him in the afternoon.”), and then they start singing their Texas songs and how much better Texas is and it all goes to hell in a couple minutes.

            • sojourner says:

              I have to state that Linda Grey was (and is) the total fox (or maybe “cougar” is the appropriate term at this point). Beyond that, I can cook a steak for almost anyone and not sing “The Eyes of Texas” as I grew up in Louisiana. I have been in Texas almost 25 years, and it is a great place in general, except that they keep re-electing this guy Rick Perry, who is a total numb-nuts.

              I will shut up for the evening… Unless someone else says something that I want to react to…

        • edve says:

          I hear ya Margaret…and agree

          IMHO, truth be told…it is foolish to bash a state or a country or whatever. Every place on earth has it’s good folk and it’s evil folk, and all those in between. I believe that the more a particular area magnetizes and attracts a particular tribe of evil folks, the more that area has the opportunity to attract the opposite in balance. It is the ole yin and yang, but few people believe in that dynamic.

          This is a world populated with many tribes with a heavy dose of all kinds of critters. If we spent more time in self reflection, we might start change within ourselves first and reach out to others post that refection, that would be a positive for the whole planet.

          As per the Desiderata:

          Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

          I think good advice for us all!

          • skdadl says:

            Wonderful photo, bmaz — I needed a laugh this afternoon.

            Margaret and edve, it is so true: this happens everywhere. Petro and I spend our lives protesting that there is in fact intelligent, caring life in Alberta, but will our pampered eastern liberals listen to us? Noooo — they think that Alberta is … forgive me, but … Texas. (Unfortunately, Dick Cheney thinks so too.)

            • Petrocelli says:

              Lord, don’t make me start to miss Alberta … fishing for Rainbow Trout in one of those last unspoiled streams, Taber Corn, Jasper, Banff, driving from Jasper to Banff, partying in Crazy Calgary …

              I got some folks in Tejas I’ve been promising to visit too … terrific folks but their portions are tooo small !

              *Ducks and runs*

  11. Phoenix Woman says:

    By the way, the current meme in the Tory press is that Obama’s an evil Brit-hating Socialist out to destroy business.

    Seriously, that’s what the Economist, falling in with the other Tory papers, is saying:

    The Economist has a pathetic leader this week criticizing Obama for hammering BP and raising the ridiculous idea that his corporate-friendly administration is anti-business.

    It actually (really!) calls the president “Vladimir Obama” and writes:

    The collapse in BP’s share price suggests that he has convinced the markets that he is an American version of Vladimir Putin, willing to harry firms into doing his bidding.

    The normally sober Economist has gone off the wagon here.

    First, it knows better than to “suggest” what “the markets” think. Second, that blew up in its face rather quickly. Instaputz points out that BP shares soared 10 percent on news of the $20 billion fund.

    Most importantly, you have a giant oil company that cut corners while drilling a mile-deep well, killed eleven people, and sprung a hole in the ocean floor that’s gushing an Exxon Valdez-size spill every four days. The company has consistently lowballed the amount of oil it’s spilling (remember the 5,000-gallon barrel days?), and has caused an environmental and economic disaster in the Southeast United States. It’s a true national emergency.

    Tories on both sides of the Atlantic, and the media organs that prop them up (the Economist, Torygraph and Daily Hitler Worshippers in the UK, FOX News et al in the US) have been doing everything in their power to shield the poor ickle BP from the oil-soaked pelicans coming home to roost.

    One favorite meme: “BP is at death’s door!” Erm, not exactly:

    http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/bp-shares-rise-after-deal-on-cleanup-costs/

    Another favorite Tory Story — the Blame Shirk: “BP’s not the real culprit here!”

    Wrong. The evidence continues to mount that BP (which ignored contractor recommendations in favor of cost- and corners-cutting on the Deepwater well: http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/congress_confirms_wsjs_story_o.php) bears the lion’s share of the blame. As a result, the world’s stock exchanges are easing off of their punishment of Transocean and Halliburton stock:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100617-712744.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesEurope

    But the new Cameron-led Tory government, which is about to unleash some nasty austerity measures on Britain’s pensioners, would gladly like to see Obama and the US take the heat for Tory-instigated suffering. Think of it as David Cameron’s camouflage — or Cammie-flage, for short.

    • Hmmm says:

      Goes straight to the heart of the UK today: It’s post-imperial, and the legitimizing myth of its surviving economic upper crust is that the virtuous and virile core of the former empire remains intact. To many patriotic Britons BP represents that imperial dominance of the world’s far-flung resources, and vestige of empire. And economically that’s not far wrong, BP Plc. is an important component of with whatever level of prosperity the UK still has. But like any imperial enterprise, it inherently carries the seeds of its own destruction, in this case quick-grown by a sustained, breathtakingly reckless, and deeply hubristic pursuit of immediate profit above all else. Personal ambition? Peak oil goldrushing? Whatever the proximate cause, that destruction is now here. And those Britons aren’t equipped to handle it psychologically.

      Shock, anger, denial… this is the anger and denial phase.

  12. Oval12345678akaJamesKSayre says:

    These Royal Corporate Imperial Brits seem utterly clueless. If they had one lick of common sense, they would at least go hide away, a la Cheney, in a secret spider hole till the BP oil gusher is 100% shut off.

    o/t: The Brits and their Royal Corporations have been imperializing the world for hundreds of years, while the American corporate imperializing of the third world has been going on for only one hundred and twelve years.

  13. scribe says:

    And, to make matters better, Hayward got out of the country before anyone else had the bad form to tag him with another subpoena.

    re: BP blowing up the entire Gulf when the putative methane reservoir erupts out of the sea bed, cited upthread a ways, I have to say: (a) ain’t too frickin likely (likely woulda happened eons ago and if the gas were that strong, we’d get the occasional earthquake as the rock deformed from the pressure), (b) Joe Barton would, from Capitol Hill, demand that the people of the Gulf apologize to BP for getting in the way of it’s natural phenomenon, and (c) supersonic tsunamis – Cool!

    That’s not to say that people in the Gulf, particularly in the near vicinity of the source of the leak, should take the methane problem lightly. It is conceivable an accumulation of clathrates could “thaw” at once and create problems for boats by the methane bubbles decreasing the density of the water, thus depriving the boats of their buoyancy. And no none should be smoking anywhere on the Gulf.

    But I’m more interested in finding more ways to beat up on Hayward.

    • bmaz says:

      Huppenthal is a fucking moron. About 12 years ago, when I lived in South Tempe I was in his district. Kept robo calling me. Relentlessly. Had some program that was able to avoid the caller ID block I put on him. So I sent him a little note on my letterhead and said if he kept bothering me at home at night I would sue him for harassment and seek civil penalties against him under some bizarre little Arizona statute I cannot really remember but I think is gone now. Somebody from his office responded by threatening to sue me. Problem was a lot of other people were writing letters to the Arizona Republic and East Valley Tribune with the same complaint, so I told the idiot that if I received one more call I would represent the whole group in some kind of class action or something. That got rid of the calls. Has the IQ of JD Hayworth, heck maybe not even that; just a little smoother presentation. Thanks for reminding me of that jerk. Crikey.

    • klynn says:

      That was wonderful. He should just withdraw from the race now.

      The video is the best free Oppo ever. It is not every day a candidate willing produces such top notch oppo against himself.

      Jane, I think a high school kid needs an internship.

  14. Hmmm says:

    I apologize if my Texas comment caused true offense, for what it’s worth I thought it was rather balanced, and to me criticizing a place is not at all the same as dissing everyone who lives there. So if anything else is what folks read in my words, then the fault is likely mine for writing badly. I hope it’s clear that I have great respect for the regular commenters here.

    And thanks to skdadl for lightening things back up a bit.

    • skdadl says:

      I have a bit of a soft spot for Texas, Hmmm. Never been there, but there was this guy named Steve, curly hair, amazing accent …

  15. transparait says:

    “In the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP’s stock value has plummeted, prompting news stories identifying the company’s largest investors. Oddly enough, some media outlets have failed to identify the largest BP shareholder: the U.S. investment firm JPMorgan Chase.

    According to the European financial database Amadeus, JPMorgan Chase is the No. 1 holder of stock in BP. That distinction also has earned the Wall Street bank the title of “Global Ultimate Owner” of the oil giant, as it owns 28.34% of BP.”

    http://allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Who_Owns_BP__Biggest_Shareholder_is_JPMorgan_Chase_100612

    • fatster says:

      Do you know how JP Morgan compared to Goldman Sachs before Goldman dumped a whole bunch of BP stocks right before the end of the 1st Q (Tony dumped a bunch, too, right about the same time)? LINK.

    • Hmmm says:

      Whenever I see a stock price plunge, I try to remember that people can make money on that too, they just have to be in the right position beforehand. Complicates the ol’ “who benefits?” analysis, doesn’t it?

        • Hmmm says:

          Also: Shorting. I’m also thinking ahead, about BP perhaps slicing itself up into parts (it’s already well segmented) and intentionally sending some parts into insolvency, in order to compartmentalize the bleeding; and in that situation our old nemesis the Credit Default Swap would be another way to make money on a decline.

          • transparait says:

            You’re right about shorting, for sure. The legal way that works is that if you want to short a stock, you have to find someone willing to borrow it to you so you can ‘sell’ it to someone who wants to buy it. When you close the trade you ‘buy’ it from someone and give it back to the person who borrowed it to you. Then there is naked shorting which goes on all the time, where no borrow is found, but the SEC does nothing about. You basically set yourself up as the exchange and ‘create’ nonexistent shares when you naked short, illegal. You might know all this, I just felt like babbling about it…

            Can’t shake the feeling that none of this has any purpose but to rip people off.

  16. onitgoes says:

    Awww, Tony Hayward got his life back; too bad the eleven people who died on Tony’s rig that blew up bc of Tony’s criminal negligence can never ever get their lives back.

    What’s that? Oh the 11 people killed on the rig were just “small people” who don’t matter?? Oh sorry, I forgot! Silly me! There’s plenty more serfs where they came from, but Tony Hayward? Only one of him! Tony’s a “big person.”

    Let them eat cake yadda yadda…

  17. greenwarrior says:

    The state capitol building in Austin is a replica of the capitol building in DC, except they built it bigger. For reasons only true Texans could understand.

  18. transparait says:

    Here we go, my link is bullshit, sorry.

    “Burrow owl’s head hurts from the dumb.

    JP Morgan, as the link above makes clear, doesn’t own that huge chuck.

    Rather, they’re the depositary institution for the ADRs. ie, JPMC buys BP shares, takes them to NY and registers them, and then sells those shares to US investors.

    For administrative and regulatory purposes, JPMC retains legal title, but all the rights and risk for the shares passes to the so-called beneficial owners. (the US investors)”

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/13/875678/-who-owns-bp

    • fatster says:

      Thanks so much for the clarification, transparait. I don’t know anything about high finances–I just like to find out stuff about the low-lifes who wheel and deal therein.

      So, JP Morgan Chase “only” buys the shares, but does not actually own them, since “For administrative and regulatory purposes, JPMC retains legal title, but all the rights and risk for the shares” passes to the jerks and schmucks who will eventually own them. Sounds like a real deal, all right.

      • transparait says:

        Yep, they’re BP’s salesman. And Hayward’s yacht ‘Bob’ races in their ‘J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race’.

        Surreal planet, these days.

      • scribe says:

        No, it makes perfect sense and is prefectly legal (and moral, for that matter).

        The gist if it is this:
        1. BP is not a US corporation (duh.) and therefore
        2. cannot offer its shares directly through a US stock exchange. That’s a matter of securities law – in the interest of having a relatively honest market, we don’t want furrin corporations which are created under and act according to furrin’ law offering their shares (and all the lies and misrepresentations less-honest stock markets allow) to American investors. This is as old as the Securities laws. Thus,
        3. Investment firms which wanted to offer investments in furrin’ corporations, and furrin corporations which wanted to raise captial here in the US devised a way to sell something which behaved like and approximated shares of stock, something called the American Depository Receipts (ADRs). These are, as the other commenter noted, an equitable interest in the share itself, but without the legal title. It’s just another example of our (Anglo-American) common law allowing the splitting of the equitable and legal portions of the title to property, with the equitable having a somewhat greater weight in the scheme of things. Thus,
        4. An American institution buys the legal ownership of shares in a furrin corporation and then deposits them into a trust and acts as trustee of that trust. That American institution then sells (and buys back, as needed) the equitable interests in that stock, providing those purchasers (and sellers) with a receipt therefor (instead of a stock certificate), the ADR. The ADR trades just like a stock, with the right to the dividends (and losses, too) attaching to the owner of the equitable interests.

        So, while JP might own 28.3 percent of all the shares in BP, to the extent it is acting as a depository institution, it does not own 28.3 percent of the ownership of BP. It’s just a trustee for the people who do.

        • fatster says:

          Thanks ever so much, scribe, for your clear explanation of what all that means. I’m going to save it for future reference. Amazing what mechanisms can be devised to accomplish goals held dear by the high and mighty. Meanwhile, 15 million people in the U.S. (using official Dept of Labor stats) could not find a job in May. Well, too bad about that–just the lot of the “small people”, ya know.

          Again, I do appreciate your clarifying remarks.

  19. sojourner says:

    My apologies to one and all… I have not had an opportunity to read through all of the comments above, but on behalf of my beloved and esteemed congressman, Mr. Joe Barton, I am truly embarrassed! Joe, as he is known to his most esteemed contributors (of which I am not one), has apparently tried to disprove the old axiom, “It is better to appear a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” He failed.

    Obviously, others of you have noted that before this posting…

    It is just sad that a man can get elected to such a prominent office with no real concerns for the American public.

    Again, I apologize. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming…

      • sojourner says:

        To be honest, it is rather embarrassing, and I have to keep repeating to myself that he said it… On the other hand, I have the same surname and the fact that he said what he did just really makes my rectum pucker up.

        It just seems that all those contributors could have done something so much more useful with their money…

          • sojourner says:

            Actually, my father’s tree bifurcated at some point. Joe is a few years younger than my father (enough to be either an uncle or an older brother) but he obviously did not inherit the intelligence from our side…

      • sojourner says:

        Well I appreciate that, but Joe Barton is, well, I don’t know how to say this nicely, a scrotum… Yeah, that’s it! A scrotum! Of course, I am merely expressing my right to an opinion…

  20. iremember54 says:

    So were all quick to jump on Hayward who’s company may cost a mere twenty, thirty, or forty billion in damages for going Yachting.

    Yet we let those Bankers cost us way more, and never even question their high lifes.

    Hayward is probably a pauper compared to the thieves on Wall Street, but we overlook them.

    Wall Street cost the Country, and yes the little people, hundreds of billions of dollars, and ruined many lives. If it be known how many suicides were because of what the Bankers did, I’d bet they killed more people.

    I’m not defending Hayward, but just questioning people outrage at some, but not at others.

  21. bobschacht says:

    Well, since this thread is vaguely related to the oil volcano, I have a question. We all know about Kevin Costner’s fantastic oil & water separator; I think I heard that something like 32 of his machines are available, and BP has finally gotten around to commissioning them. But today I heard of a new setup, that Drew Bledsoe is a partner in, called “Ozonix.” The way they explained it on CNN today didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Apparently, at the site of the leaking well, instead of spraying the venting oil & gas with dispersants, they spray it with Ozone, which helps raise it to the surface, where skimmers are waiting to suck it up and separate the oil from the water. They did not explain their oil separation process on the CNN segment that I saw. This press release includes a link to a power point presentation (pdf) on how it works. However, they don’t explain how they separate the oil from the water, except to say that it is “non-chemical.” They say that they have production equipment ready to use.

    They seem to think that the main problem is to get the oil to rise to the surface. I didn’t think that was the main problem. They mainly attack the idea of using dispersants, which is OK by me, but I’d like to see some comparison of the effectiveness about their separator vs. the Costner model, both in terms of efficiency, and volume. The CNN piece, and their “power point” presentation (six slides of child-like drawings) are intended mainly as a sales presentation rather than as a truly informative explanation. The CNN interviewer did not ask them about the separation process, except they did mention a volume measurement that I didn’t catch the specifics of.

    Anyone else know about this?

    Bob in AZ

  22. bobschacht says:

    Well, OK, the Ozonics process basically involves oxidation.
    The details are presented here. The physics of the process are

    * Super-saturated ozonated water is flash mixed with effluent using hydro-dynamic cavitation through a liquid sparger
    * Dual-frequency ultrasonic transducers initiate the dissolved gas flotation of oils and suspended solids and the conversion of ozone to hydroxyl radicals

    Its a good thing that theres an infinite supply of oxygen. /s
    I wonder how much all that Ozone costs? Maybe if they sucked it out of the air in LA there wouldn’t be so much smog.

    Bob in AZ

    • fatster says:

      I surely hope whatever it is does work. Meanwhile, the skimmers are on the Gulf. Neat picture of them accompanying the article. Hooray for the Dutch for persisting in their efforts to help, despite the big brush-off given them initially.

      Jones Act: Maritime politics strain Gulf oil spill cleanup

      “The Coast Guard Friday “redoubled” efforts to keep the Deepwater Horizon oil spill from impacting Gulf states by calling in more skimming boats and equipment from the Netherlands, Norway, France, and Spain after previously telling one Dutch official “Thanks, but no thanks,” to an offer of help.”

      LINK.

      • bmaz says:

        White House could fashion an emergency based order sidestep/work around of the Jones Act in about 15 minutes if they gave a fuck.

        • freepatriot says:

          White House could fashion an emergency based order sidestep/work around of the Jones Act in about 15 minutes if they gave a fuck

          george bush suspended the Jones act after Katrina

          it helped haliburton use undocumented workers, ignore environmental laws, and save a bunch of money using substandard and non union workers

          other than that, suspending the Jones act doesn’t help much

          so splain to me how screwing American workers will improve the situation

          hey fatster, you should stop using repuglotarded talking points, it makes you look like a goober

          • scribe says:

            Actually, Bush waived the Davis-Bacon Act, which allowed the contractors to get away without paying prevailing (union) wage on their federally-funded work. That was the genesis of, fer instance, NOLA garbagemen being told they were being laid off from their union jobs and then offered employment in doing the cleanup at much lower, non-union wages.

            AFAIK (and while I’m a lawyer I do not have admiralty experience), while Davis-Bacon does have a provision written into it for waiving it, the Jones Act does not have such an explicit waiver provision provided.

            I have read that Obama has already waived Davis-Bacon (nice bitchslap to your labor allies, Barry) but I do not believe he could, legally, waive the Jones Act.

            Of course, if someone with the relevant experience can show me otherwise, I’m all ears.

            • bmaz says:

              Yes, I think there are emergency powers available under the CWA and/or OPA that would give sufficient putative authority.

              • fatster says:

                and scribe @ 136.

                Apologies for being so ignorant, but is the Jones Act the same as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920? Wiki has one small, not terribly informative, article on it, so would appreciate knowing more, if either/both of you would refer me to a better source about it. Many thanks.

                PS Do we now call you Skipper, bmaz, what with all the experience on Lake Powell?

                • bmaz says:

                  Yes the MMA of 1920, as subsequently amended, is known as the “Jones Act”. And the Executive branch, through th DOT maritime subdivision, is authorized to grant waivers for emergency and national defense grounds.

                • scribe says:

                  Call BMAz anything, so long as we don’t start hearing him calling people “Little Buddy”.

          • fatster says:

            I was very pleased that they are finally putting the Dutch skimmers to use. That was my emphasis, and that’s why I linked to that article.

  23. tanbark says:

    Photos! We need photos of that $700,000 yacht! :o)

    And, Rahm idiotically accuses Hayward of making a “gaffe”.

    I have news for Emanuel: at this point, we are so far past the point of gaffes, that it’s like the can of gaffes were sitting in Tony’s front yard, as he is winging it, in his corporate Lear-Starship, parsecs past Sirius, the Dog Star.

    Does anyone seriously believe that NO one in his entourage/family/circle-of-major-stockholders told Hayward that farting around in a fatcat sailboat race named after J.P. Morgan, while holding hands with sundry other greedheads and robber barons, would be seen as callous and even vindictive? I don’t believe that.

    He knew exactly what he was doing, just as Obama and Biden knew what they were doing when they went out for a round of golf while the Gulf of Mexico is dying the death of a thousand press releases full of low-balled bullshit from BP and the Obama admininstration. This was nothing but the two CEO’s, Hayward and Obama, blithely but directly saying to the world:

    “Fuck the pelicans; fuck the turtles; fuck the beaches; fuck the people; and most importantly; fuck any of the media who’ve gone off the corporate reservation and whom aren’t helping us Corexit the living shit out of the truth, until it’s out of sight 300 feet down in Gulf…at which point we would pull any government grants to the University of Jesus Christ, if they don’t stop sending out non-NOAA-approved researchers who keep talking about the giant plumes of oil that we’ve (more or less…) hidden in the GOM. Everyone clear on that???”

  24. fatster says:

    BP’s plan: Raise $50 billion, sue business partners

    “BP is trying to raise 50 billion dollars to cover the cost of the Gulf of Mexico spill and is preparing to sue its partners in the oil field, British newspapers said on Sunday.”

    Trying to raise?

    LINK.

  25. fatster says:

    Barges OK’d to Block Oil Spill from La. Bay
    Plan Calls for 60 Barges to be Anchored Together, Tied End-to-End to Stretch 7,000 Feet Across Entrance to Barataria Bay

    “(CBS)  The Coast Guard said Friday that BP is now capturing more than a million gallons of oil per day, but that may only be half of the leak. Relief wells offer the best hope for plugging it. One of them is just 200 feet from completion, though it could take weeks to finish the job”

    LINK.

  26. kingharvest says:

    Sorry, but we expect more than this anti-British tripe from this publication. It is time everyone gets off the Hayward Bus and concentrate on those responsible for this mess -and that includes the Federal Government and their pathetically lax oversight of the entire industry.

    • BoxTurtle says:

      1) This thread is anti-BP, but certainly not anti-British. Unless you are saying that BP IS Britan.

      2) The Hayward bus IS where the people responsable for this mess are. Alas, that includes our current federal government.

      3) If you click on the BP tag at the top, you’ll find numerous threads discussing the pathetically lax oversight with several ideas worthy of debate.

      4) Welcome to firedoglake

      Boxturtle (re #1: Full Disclosure – We’re not big fans of Tony Blair around here either.)

      • freepatriot says:

        Boxturtle (re #1: Full Disclosure – We’re not big fans of Tony Blair around here either.)

        you shoulda mentioned soccer and cricket too

        on the bright side, we do have some F-1 fans (mostly Canadian infiltrators, I suspect)

        so we got that goin for us …

        • Mary says:

          My first dog was named Cricket – I was very fond of her. She bit the mayor’s mother-in-law and we had to relocate her. The mayor wanted to give her a medal, though.

    • bmaz says:

      Your comment is lame. This post is lampooning Hayward personally; not Brits collectively. What a bunch of soft skinned disingenuous bullshit you trotted in with and deposited. When and if I decide to carve up the British colonial arrogance and damaging opportunism including the sordid history of British Petroleum, you will damn well know it. And if you cannot take fluff like this little post, you are going to be in a real world of hurt when that time comes.

    • john in sacramento says:

      What anti-British tripe?

      Example?

      What? Because you self-identify with a corporation with a horrid coup inciting, labor, safety, environmental, and scandal-ridden record (Lord Brown), anything shedding light on these things is ant-British

      I’m guessing you haven’t noticed the hundreds of posts on this site protesting American corporate behavior and political leadership

      Xenophobe much?

      Sure thing buddy, we’ll stop because you say so

      • bmaz says:

        Crikey, I didn’t even touch the Brits in the post; the entire ridiculously short post (for me anyway) was aimed squarely at the socialite dandy Thuston Howell III Tony Hayward. Heck I did not even particularly discuss or pound BP, save for inference by way of their CEO Hayward.

        • john in sacramento says:

          You’d think reading comprehension skills in the English language would be inherently stronger for someone who seemingly identifies themselves as British … I guess not

          Bollocks to Hayward and that Swedish dude (Swedish name anyway) who called the Gulf Coasters “small” people

          Anyone know what the CCMI after Hayward’s name means?

    • qweryous says:

      “Sorry, but we expect more than this anti-British tripe from this publication. It is time everyone gets off the Hayward Bus and concentrate on those responsible for this mess -and that includes the Federal Government and their pathetically lax oversight of the entire industry.”

      Here and I thought that Hayward was an murrikan republican?

      Seems to be supported as such by our man from Texas (Burton) and BP a good citizen.. what!- theyse furriners?

      Well these furriners at the company formerly known as the Anglo Iranian Oil Company see: “Time to Check In on Our Relations with the Anglo-Iranian OIl Company” did have a habit of meeting with and making political donations to politicians!
      Google Dick Cheney secret energy task force if this is news to you.
      Those lobbyists were not intended to influence regulators were they?

      Blame the regulators is lame enough as put forth here:

      “Yves here. As Rex reader described the “blame the regulators” canard:

      You have a few drinks and are driving home at about 100 mph, when it starts to rain. You lose control, crash, taking out a bunch of other drivers and starting a fire which burns down a lot of the surrounding neighborhood. Your defense — there were laws in place that should have prevented the accident. The fault lies with the cops who failed to stop you before the unfortunate accident which was triggered by an act of God (the rain).”

      The preceding from this “On the Curious and Misguided Defenses of BP” linked here previously I am sure from Naked Capitalism.

      Of course if the regulators and the regulated have been mingling,influencing,employing in revolving door fashion, drinking,and even schtupping each other; then the ‘failed to regulate’ defense is even more inappropriate.

      British Petroleum and it’s chosen C.E.O. Tony Hayward do indeed have more to explain than the ‘explosion’,’leak’, and the resulting ‘slick’.

  27. Mary says:

    OT – but I just kind of wanted to share a bit, as a public service thingy.

    This seems to have been kind of under the radar –

    17 members of the Afghan military have gone missing – from Lackland Air Force Base.

    U.S. military investigators are asking law enforcement nationwide to be on the lookout

    Ok – I’m not law enforcement, but I thought I’d lend a helping hand.

    17 Afghans disappeared from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio one-by-one over the last 18 months, but a federal law enforcement official says seven have been accounted for.

    It’s probably just me, but that sentence seems to leave more than just a preposition dangling.

    I guess the Air Force has something like the five second rule – for foreign commandos that drop out of sight, after 18 mos you mention it to law enforcement. Bc apparently this happens all the time:

    Previous indications are that such foreign military deserters typically do so solely for prospects of a better life

    • skdadl says:

      That is a classic … as long as that’s all it is. I enjoyed reading that. I think. As long as it’s just a caper story. (Why am I so nervous these days that I can’t make a positive claim?)

  28. freepatriot says:

    anybody got any info on the fact that the oil is now flowing outside the pipe AND the casing ???

    is this true ???

    cuz if it IS true, only the explosion thingy can stop this now

    and I still don’t believe that the “mini nuc” thingy is a good idea

    looks like BP just lost the whole deposit

    and we have to get used to about a TRILLION BARRELS of oil flowing into the Gulf Of Mexico for the foreseeable future

    • bmaz says:

      I think it always has been; it is just exacerbating geometrically now. However, if they are able to hit the exact sweet spot pin point placement with the relief well, and get it perfectly at the lowest possible location that does not fracture the reservoir dome, the relief well should still do the job of closing this sucker off. The chances of all this, of course, are WAY lower than they are letting on.

      • freepatriot says:

        this is all speculative, an I been wrong before …

        I been hearing scary discussions about shale. I suspect that discussion means this oil pocket is in some type of shale that is prone to ripping open

        if the oil is flowing outside the casing, then a relief well isn’t gonna work unless it is below the breech in the casing

        and now I’m wondering about the shape and depth of the oil pocket

        and the “rock” it’s in

        I’m stickin with my original prediction

        BP killed us all

        (bangs head on table)

  29. bobschacht says:

    We need to be paying more attention to what’s going on at other rigs in the GOM. One of the biggest is Atlantis, which CNN has been highlighting lately, because adequate plans are lacking for 90% of the rig’s operations. That seems to correlate this story from the WaPo:

    BP Atlantis rig plans never received proper approvals, former contractor says
    Washington Post by David S. Hilzenrath | Jun. 17, 2010 (News)
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/17/AR2010061703872.html

    Bob in AZ

  30. fatster says:

    Ghastly.

    BP ‘burning sea turtles alive’

    “A rare and endangered species of sea turtle is being burned alive in BP’s controlled burns of the oil swirling around the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat captain tasked with saving them says the company has blocked rescue efforts.”

    LINK.

  31. Mary says:

    I’m confused – isn’t Cap’n Jack best buds with Kagan? Surely if he could help figure out Jones Act waivers for Chertoff after Katrina, she could have recruited him to help out a fellow torture cover-up collaborator like Obama?

    BTW – that pic “Forever Resorts” sounds like the something you’d find floating on the river Styx.

  32. rosalind says:

    ot: just got back from a screening of “The Tillman Story” at the LA Film Fest. this incredible documentary on Pat Tillman will be released nation-wide on Aug. 20.

    so much to say, but i’ll refrain until everyone has a chance to see it. i will say that the Tillman family are some of the most fucking cool people on earth. (and after you see the film you’ll know my choice of colorful adjective is in honor of the three Tillman brothers whose conjugative ability with said word provides one of the funniest moments in the film).

    Pat’s brother Kevin is mostly a silent presence in the film, but just now i came across an op-ed he wrote on the eve of the 2006 elections that i’d never seen. a true must-read.

    • Hmmm says:

      And there at last is the answer to my original question about who converted the mystery second shear ram to a test ram, and when:

      The following year, BP opted to remove a layer of redundancy from the blowout preventer. It asked Transocean to replace one of the blowout preventer’s secondary rams with a “test ram” — a device that would save BP money by reducing the time it took to conduct certain well tests. In a joint letter, BP and Transocean executives confirmed that BP was aware that the change “will reduce the built-in redundancy” and raise Transocean’s “risk profile.”

      Smoking gun time. Hanging’s too good for them.

    • bobschacht says:

      I was worried about the tilt possibility weeks ago, but people told me I was crazy. No way, I was told. The multi-ton BOP was too big to be bothered by tilting and falling riser pipe, even if the pipe was 21″ in diameter and was a mile long. And they seemed right, because it was the pipe that tilted and folded. But still, that was a lot of torque for the base of the BOP to absorb.

      I’ve never seen a good explanation about how the BOP sits on the well head. Does it actually sit on the ocean floor, so that its weight is partly supported by the ocean floor, or does it sit with its weight entirely on the well bore pipe? If it is suspended on the well bore pipe, how far above the ocean floor is it?

      The weight would be no problem, as long as the BOP was balanced on the well bore pipe. But the toppling riser pipe would have exerted unbalanced force on the well bore pipe, and if the BOP was poised and balanced on the well bore pipe, then it would take the full force of the toppling riser pipe. One would think one of the ROVs would be sent to peek at the junction between the well bore and the BOP– I’ll bet a cookie that BP has done that, but has not shared the images they got with the public.

      Bob in AZ

      • Hmmm says:

        Guess it depends a bit on just why it’s tilting now — riser load damage at incident time vs. steady wearing damage since then. The piece on the shear rams yesterday said the blades were probably worn to the point of uselessness after just a couple days… how bad must the wearing of the pipe inner walls be by now? I would think by this point that structural steel in the various pipes would be thinned and weakened by two months of constant sandblasting, and that the well bore outside the pipes would be significantly widened and eroded by now, i.e outside of the concrete plugs. So, lots of room for wobble there. In fact it’s a wonder there isn’t more pipe failure all over the place by now. And I would expect pipe failure at some point, complicating collection.

        Oy.

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