Bad Deeds for 5-20-2010

 

Oil Hits Louisiana Wetlands – Crude oil spread through fragile US marshlands Thursday, a month after a drilling rig blast released a devastating spill that now threatens Florida, Cuba and even beyond. Photos

 

Costly, Time-Consuming Test of Cement Linings in Deepwater Horizon Rig Was Omitted, Spokesman Says – BP hired a top oilfield service company to test the strength of cement linings on the Deepwater Horizon’s well, but sent the firm’s workers home 11 hours before the rig exploded April 20 without performing a final check that a top cementing company executive called “the only test that can really determine the actual effectiveness” of the well’s seal.

A spokesman for the testing firm, Schlumberger, said BP had a Schlumberger team and equipment for sending acoustic testing lines down the well “on standby” from April 18 to April 20. But BP never asked the Schlumberger crew to perform the acoustic test and sent its members back to Louisiana on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight at 11 a.m., Schlumberger spokesman Stephen T. Harris said.

At a few minutes before 10 p.m., a belch of natural gas shot out of the well, up a riser pipe to the rig above, igniting massive explosions, killing 11 crewmembers and sending millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf. The rig’s owner, Transocean, blames failed cement seals, installed by Halliburton, for the disastrous blowout.

 

BP, Coast Guard Officers Block Journalists From Filming Oil-Covered Beach – When CBS tried to film a beach with heavy oil on the shore in South Pass, Louisiana, a boat of BP contractors, and two Coast Guard officers, told them to turn around, or be arrested.

“This is BP’s rules, it’s not ours,” someone aboard the boat said. Coast Guard officials told CBS that they’re looking into it.

As the Coast Guard is a branch of the Armed Forces, it brings into question how closely the government and BP are working together to keep details of the disaster in the dark.

BP is making the rules? Kind of hard to argue that we aren’t a full-blown corporatocracy, when BP–that’s British Petroleum–is leading the United States Coast Guard on this.

 

Affluent People Supporting Taliban Heroin Trade (Perhaps Unknowingly) – Since September, 2008, Friendswood (Texas) Police have made 70 arrests in conjunction with drug investigations and 40 of those felony charges were related to heroin and prescription drugs. There have also been seven federal indictments handed down as a result of the investigation. This is the first heroin-related arrest in Friendswood in 2010.

Lt. Josh Rogers of the Friendswood Police says he believes the Friendswood area is being targeted because of its affluence and that users may not be aware that they are even using heroin because of the way it is marketed.

The dark brown sticky substance is known as Liquid O, sludge, tar, Liquid Heroin, or just “O” and is distributed in eye dropper vials. The “O” is derived from the word opium, the main ingredient in heroin.

Liquid Heroin is inhaled through the nose and goes for $5 to $10 a drop. One gram of black tar heroin that sells for $400 can yield up to 90 doses of liquid heroin. It is believed that the heroin comes from Mexico, South America or Afghanistan and is being distributed from southeast Houston to North Galveston County.

 

Domestic Terrorist Strikes America! – On May 10th, a middle-aged man carried a can of gasoline and a pipe bomb into the Jacksonville Islamic Center of Northeast Florida during evening prayers and detonated it. Fortunately, there were no injuries to people, though the bomb did damage property. The surveillance video gives a fairly decent picture of this man, who is clearly white, middle-aged, and on a mission.

So, a mosque is bombed by a white guy and the bomb isn’t exactly small, but the national media sees no value in reporting it? Really? And yet, that is evidently the case.

Anti-Muslim sentiments in Florida have been bubbling to the surface, particularly after Republican Dan Fanelli’s campaign commercial was aired asking if a man appearing to be from the Middle East “looked like a terrorist.” According to Yahoo News, there were two other ads with even more pointed messages against Muslims:

Another ad has Fanelli saying, “This is a terrorist,” as he presents a “Middle Eastern” man strapped with a “bomb” and wearing what appears to be a dish towel “turban.”

Yet another ad shows two Arabic-speaking “terrorists” constructing a bomb while discussing “martyrdom” and “killing infidels.” The ad also mocks long-standing due process rights such as Miranda warnings and access to lawyers.

 

Rifle-Toting Republican Candidate Does Crazy Ad, Gets Spoofed – With a horse by his side in his ad for Agriculture Commissioner in Alabama, Dale Peterson complains of “illegals bussed in by the thousands.” Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die website spoofs the ad by the Republican candidate. Watch ‘em both.

Regards,

Jim