"Are you f--king happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

[scheming daemons]

-- Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell, on a satellite phone call to Houston as the rig was exploding.

(source: Newsweek)



But Tony Hayward says that there is a "culture of safety" at BP.

[Jennicut]

1. A culture of doing what is expedient, easy, and least expensive.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. Someone should have said...

"If you think maintenance on a $500,000 blow-out preventor is expensive wait'll you see what an exploding rig, a polluted gulf, 4 oil-soaked states and numerous crippled industries will set you back.

"That crap can get *really* expensive!"

[DrDan]

3. why does ANYONE think their approach to containment and cleanup will be any different?

the FEDS need to lead the containment and cleanup efforts!

[katanalori]

4. This is a BFD!

Do you happen to have a link to the Newsweek article? Thanks.

[scheming daemons]

5. link to quote

http://newsweek.tumblr.com/post/673454797/are-you-fucking-happy-are-you-fucking-happy-the

[Soylent Brice]

6. thank you for the link. n/t

[Soylent Brice]

7. K&R

[XemaSab]

8. There was an article yesterday in the Times-Picayune

saying that BP said that they didn't comply with the law requiring that they inspect the blowout preventer because the MMS didn't ask them to.

That's taking half-assed to a whole new level right there.

[Mimosa]

11. MMS is partly to blame

As Rep. Markey has shown us they did not read the contingency disaster reports, 4 out of 5 which referred to walruses in the Gulf.

[XemaSab]

12. I know I shouldn't chuckle every time I hear that

but SWEET BUTTER JESUS these people are lazy and stupid. :o

[TexasObserver]

9. recommend

[Mopar151]

10. Culture of safety my ass!

I worked for an outfit (Praxair) who operated like this. What happens is, the company has a big, fancy safety program, which is managed by incompetents at it's top levels. Then all safety expenditures are charged to individual business units.
Now, you create a culture where management & workers become used to bypassing lots of meaningless edicts and cumbersome procedures, just to get ANYTHING done.
Finally, you put relentless bottom-line pressure on middle managers, who have become deaf to any statement involving the word "Safety", as it has become (in their minds) a ubiquitous exscuse for why something is not getting done, and costing too much.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. To whom had Jimmy Harrell said this was going to happen?

To whom did that person report? Who decided to ignore Mr. Harrell?

Etc.

K&R

[kenny blankenship]

29. We'll probably never find out

because all the guilty parties have been allowed to sequester their employees away from reporters and govt. investigators - supposing there were any around interested enough to ask questions. They have all been huddling with their lawyers and rehearsing their stories about the awful, terrible, no good, very bad accident that was nobody's fault. I read here the other day that Mr. Harrell has denied having had that conversation or saying those words to anybody. I expect, although I may be accused of being overly cynical, that the investigation, supposing there ever is one, will hit various brick walls of jurisdiction, will languish with the unavailability of testimony from certain non-US nationals, will snag on the sanctity of confidentiality agreements, etc. and proprietary technical data that cannot even be outlined in open court, and will fizzle out into irrelevance much like the Congressional inquiry at the end of Bong Joon-Ho's film The Host. At the end of the day, BP is one of the world's great corporations, great as in big and historical- like the British East India Company. Not only are they very big, and pump a lot of oil, and swing a lot of dick in Congress, and fill out a lot of stock portfolios here and abroad, but BP is also the official low cost supplier of Go Juice to our thirsty military in a couple of theaters of war, apparently. Which makes BP a critical ally in our Global War On Stuff - not to mention their intimate connection to Britain, who is our only real boots-on-the-ground henchman in that caper. In the end, we'll all be asked to swallow a preposterous story of innocent happenstance and unlucky coincidences, and dummy up in Support of Our Troops. A few underlings will be hanged from the yard arm, but the executives who are really at fault for the Gulf ecocide will be shielded from the consequences of their gross criminal negligence, along with the company itself.

[depakid]

14. The Obama administration was indeed warned that this would happen

but they chose to ignore those warnings- and accelerate offshore drilling- knowing the regulatory agenciy and inspection process was utterly inept.

[MilesColtrane]

15. The administration was warned that Deepwater Horizon was going to blow up?

I hadn't heard that.

[uponit7771]

16. me neither

[MilesColtrane]

17. I guess Obama was on the other end of that satellite phone call.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Documents clearly show...

that Obama was briefed by the Grays that the Bermuda Triangle was expected to attack that oil rig.

:crazy:

[depakid]

18. Gee- a rig blew less than a year earlier in damn near identical circumstances

took months to stop the massive flow of oil. The Inspector General's Office and the GAO have issued reports condemning the MMS's ineptitude, negligence and corruption. BP has a long and sordid history of repeated safety violations- worst of all of them.

How much more warning does one need to say: hey, maybe approving this Deepwater Horizon project- and failing to inspect it- isn't such a bright idea?

Montara: Timor Sea, August - November 2009



-----


-----


-----



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montara_oil_spill

[MilesColtrane]

21. I'm not happy that the Salazar wasn't able to flush out...

the entrenched corruption in the Bush MMS in 14 months.

But, the Inspector General's report on the corruption in the LA branch of MMS was issued after the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

...the GAO report on the Alaskan branch of the MMS came out 13 days before the accident.

Despite that, I do think he should be fired by Obama and replaced.

[depakid]

28. GAO report was issued in September 2009

http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/app_processform.php?app_id=docdblite_date&page=3

Bottom line is that serious problems and corruption at the agency were not only well known, but notorious -and many of those same sorts of problems are also open and notorious at other agencies (still) like The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

And- just as a reminder about other past due accounts, what ever happened to the SEC staff who were complicit in Madoff's and Stanford's schemes?

[MilesColtrane]

30. Your link is not functioning.

[depakid]

31. Then you'll need to run a date linited search for yourself to read the report

You can do that here: http://www.gao.gov/

[On the Road]

20. And Then There's This:

"Who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

Already become its own little internet meme:

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=5405047

---------------------------------------

"Who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

[flyarm]

22. Gulf skeptical of Obama's " PART-TIME" recovery chief

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_cleanup_czar

Gulf skeptical of Obama's " PART-TIME" recovery chief

By MATT APUZZO and EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writers Matt Apuzzo And Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press Writers – Fri Jun 18, 3:01 pm ET

JACKSON, Miss. – Gulf Coast environmentalists and business owners are skeptical of President Barack Obama's plan to have his point man for recovery perform his job part-time. And they're worried the cleanup will become mired in bureaucratic deliberations.

Obama tapped Navy Secretary and former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus this week for an amorphous second job leading the environmental and economic recovery. His job is no less than rebuilding a region that was still suffering from Hurricane Katrina and beset by decades of environmental problems even before the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Unlike President George W. Bush's pick to lead Katrina's recovery, Mabus is not stepping down from his day job, in which he oversees 900,000 Navy and Marine personnel.

"The president is confident that Governor Mabus is going to be able to provide the leadership that's necessary to do both these jobs," White House spokesman Bill Burton said Friday.

Others felt differently, adding to their criticism that Obama has not responded quickly or forcefully enough to the spill.

[Rex]

23. Two crimes here - the actual cover up and the American Governments

subservience to British Petroleum. At this point, I'm long past the point of caring anymore who is to blame - I think this might be it for the human race. And all this time I thought it would be a mushroom cloud. Boy how stupid can I be! Not the military, a corporation stupid!

[Curmudgeoness]

24. Quote of the year.

[MadMaddie]

25. Have you heard of the "BP and the Three Pigs Memo"?

Enjoy and prepare to be further enraged!!

http://www.inweekly.net/article.asp?artID=11532

<snip>
Throughout his work on the case, Coon used a Three Little Pigs analogy to illustrate the cost/benefit analysis that he believed BP used to choose the less expensive buildings, with the trailers representing straw or sticks, versus stronger material the lawyer said should have been used. But whenever Coon brought up the fairy tale, he says that BP’s attorneys objected
<snip>

The Document
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-25/shocking-bp-memo-and-the-oil-spill-in-the-gulf/full/

[UTUSN]

26. Tme?!1 Date?1 (not today) n/t

[WillyT]

27. K & R !!!

:kick: