Toontime: The Last Quagmire?

[credit Jim Morin, Miami Herald]

It is a lot easier to blow people away than convince them of the righteousness of your military occupation of their country. Perhaps that is why US troops are allegedly asking their new commander for a loosening of the rules of engagement.Clearly, the Obama team has run out of ideas.  The 'surge' in Iraq, which many observers believe Forty-four is emulating in Afghanistan, has produced a domestic political stalemate that endangers that nation's fragile peace and the American military withdrawal. After doing his best Harry Truman imitation by sacking General McChrystal, Obama's "go to guy", General David Petraeus, is still faced with the inconvenient truth that his civilian boss is propping up a quisling government so corrupted that it interferes with military operations. The Kandahar push had to be postponed because local officials, headed by President Karsai's Taliban friendly brother, could not be brought on board. Karsai is already planning for his survival after the US military leaves by opening negotiations with the Taliban.

The reality on the ground in Afghanistan makes our military leaders sound like college sophomores at a football rally. After taking over from McCrystal, Petraeus talked about "winning" the war there. Hopefully this rhetoric was for grunt consumption only. The only thing the contesting ethnic factions in Afghanistan can agree on is the removal of western troops. As the General would readily admit, winning hearts and minds in a counterinsurgency is more than half the battle. Nine years on, that battle we have clearly lost. It is one we lost in Vietnam too. Destroying Vietnamese villages in order to save them from communism did not win that conflict, nor will killing more Afghanis win this one. If the original rational for this war was to enter the country, destroy Al Qaeda and it's leaders, and then exit, the rationale has been lost amongst the hubris of western militarism.  The $33 billion Congress recently approved for the Afghan war is a waste, pure and simple, and better spent giving Americans another six months of unemployment benefits.

Good News in Numbers

The National Wildlife Federation reports that several species of endangered animals have increased their number or survive in numbers larger than previously thought.  Good news indeed at a time when the loss of biological diversity is becoming pervasive.  Some exceptions to the general trend towards extinction:

• Grizzly Bears--Senator John McCain ridiculed the expenditure of federal funds to study bear DNA, but the study resulted in the most accurate population count of the largest grizzly bear population in the lower 48 states.  There are now 765 grizzly bears in northwestern Montana, two and a half times the previous federal estimate;
• Western lowland Gorilla--recently 125,000 lowland gorillas were discovered in a remote area of the huge Congo Basin thanks to months of gut wrenching effort by staffers from the Wildlife Conservation Society.   Their discovery more than doubles previous estimates, and has encouraged the Congolese government to create a new national park to protect them.  The Society is searching for ways to protect our primate cousins from an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus that kills both humans and apes;
• Black-footed Ferrets--a reintroduced population of ferrets in Wyoming's Shirley Basin managed to survive a double whammy of disease.  Plague and distemper reduced a population of 200 released animals to five in 1997.  But the latest counts show that the resilient ferrets have rebounded to 239.  Extrapolating from the study area count, there may be as many as 1,000 in the Basin, which makes the reintroduction effort a great success.  Given a helping hand, animals can make it back from the brink;
• Eastern Bowhead Whales--Scientists thought the eastern population was very small, but native Inuit were asking for increased quotas for their annual hunt based on their observations.  The Canadian government used satellite tracking combined with aerial surveys to produce a figure of around 14,400 bowheads.  That number was reduced by the International Whaling Committee after a critique of their methodology to about 6,300.  The truth may lie in between, but it's good news either way because the eastern group may have finally hit a threshold for speedier growth barring renewed commercial whaling and the threat posed by global warming;
• Tokin Snub-Nosed Monkey--another monkey thought to be on the verge of extinction.  Scientists estimated a total of 150 or fewer of the extravagantly colored primate confined to a few patches of forest in northeastern Vietnam. Last December Vietnamese biologists found a new breeding group of twenty monkeys including 3 infants.  The find prompted the government to protect their patch of forest and help nearby villagers avoid hunting them for food or destroying their habitat;
• Sociable Lapwings--a plover scientists had written off as headed towards extinction because of habitat loss.  By 2003 the estimate was only 200 breeding pairs remaining in Eurasia. But in 2007 a flock of 3,200 birds was found in the remote Turkish steppe.  Researchers were led to the site by a bird that had been tagged with a satellite signal responder.  Lapwings are the smallest bird ever to be successfully satellite tagged thanks to the Darwin Initiative funding the project by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Do not be misled. All of these animals still face possible extinction due to environmental destruction. No better example of the truth of this statement is Louisiana's state bird, the Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalus). Recently removed from the endangered species list, the pelican now faces catastrophic destruction of it's breeding habitat along the Gulf Coast because of the recklessness of a virtual person, British Petroleum, Plc.

Top Kill Failure Could Be Sign of Subsurface Leaks

Update: Even 'Bubba' Clinton talked about the possibility of using explosives to collapse the seabed around the Macondo blowout. If the well casings are not intact, then relief wells will not seal off the reservoirs because there is more than one route for the oil and gas to escape into the sea. Clinton said nuclear devices would not be necessary, but US Person thinks conventional explosives would not be sufficiently powerful to collapse porous strata over a wide enough area to permanently stop the leaks. A relatively small nuclear blast, besides burying the well bore, could also fuse rock overlying the oil reservoirs creating an impermeable layer or "cap" well below the sea bottom. Much has be made of the fact that the Soviet experience with this drastic method was on land. Pundits tend to neglect the fact that the successful explosions took place in subsurface rock strata--the same would be true for an explosion beneath the seafloor in the Mississippi Canyon formation. No doubt a nuclear blast is a risky proposition, so the suggestion has always been intended as a last resort after the relief wells have failed to stop the blowout. Letting the huge reservoirs simply drain out would be an environmental disaster beyond contemplation of even a "Freddie Kreuger".  Tar balls have washed up on Texas beaches for the first time.  Not an "act of God" as the craven Texas governor would have you believe, but a notorious act of man. But then they always do tend to exaggerate in the Lone Star State.

{6.17.10}Yes, folks US Person said it was the "big one", and knowledgeable commentators are saying the same thing. The failure of BP's top kill operation last week, could indicate leaks exist below the sea bottom in the well bore itself.  Pumping 80 barrels of heavy drilling mud a minute into the well failed to seal it after three attempts. Usually this method has a good chance of killing a gusher, but in this case the pumping action did not overtake the flow of oil, indicating a leak somewhere beyond the column of drilling mud being forced into the well. BP used up 50,000 barrels of mud before calling off the effort[1].

What does this mean? The worst case scenario is now a distinct possibility. A compromised well bore in which crude is leaking out of failed well casings means any top down method of shutting off the leak is doomed to failure[2]. Even relief wells may not work since they is no way of knowing which of four reservoirs are escaping to the surface or where exactly in the column the leaks are located. A complete bleed out of the reservoirs--2 to 2.5 billions barrels--may end up in the Gulf of Mexico, turning it into an ecological nightmare. Even the wildlife is trying to escape for their lives. One thing is certain: a $20 billion liability fund is a puny drop in the ocean compared to the cost of havoc being unleashed at 50,000 barrels of toxic crude a day.

[1] BP experienced problems controlling well pressures before the explosion due to cracks in the surrounding strata. BP finally plugged cracks through which gas was seeping into the well bore after three attempts in February before the final gas leak destroyed the Deepwater Horizon platform on April 20th. The company informed the Minerals Management Service in early March it was having a "well control situation". Other companies have shut down wells considered unsafe due to gas surges. Exxon shut its Blackbeard well in 2006 after a threatened blowout.
[2]In 1966, a nuclear explosive was detonated at Urtabulak gas field in Southern Uzbekistan in order to extinguish a gas well fire that had been burning for almost three years and had resisted numerous attempts at control. The gas fountain, which formed at pressures of almost 300 atmospheres, had resulted in the loss of over 12 million cubic metres of gas per day through a 200 mm casing – enough to supply a city the size of St Petersburg. Two 445 mm holes were drilled that aimed to come as close as possible to the well at a depth of about 1500 metres in the middle of a 200 metre thick clay zone. One of these came to within about 35 m of the well and was used to emplace the special 30-kiloton charge which had been developed by the Arzamas weapons laboratory. Immediately after the explosion the fire went out and the well was sealed. This was the first of five peaceful nuclear explosions used for this purpose, and all but one was completely successful in extinguishing the fire and sealing the well. No radioactivity above background levels was detected in subsequent surveys of any of the sites. www.world-nuclear.org. So, Mr. Garwin, is the freak still crazy after all these years?

Chart of the Week: What's With North Dakota?

This chart from Business Insider tells us that 49 out of 50 states have lower business activity than last year.  The states on the left have experienced the most decline with West Virginia leading the way.  US Person has no explanation for the sole positive outlier in this bleak picture.  Could it be that North Dakota's state-owned central bank, the Bank of North Dakota, is responsible for insulating the rural state from the malaise overtaking the rest of the country? Or has a new gold mother lode been discovered there?

'Toontime: Executive (In)Action

Wackydoodle asks: But can he see the flag?

"MMS (Minerals Management Service) is the most corrupt, inept, industry-dominated agency I have dealt with in 20 years," said Kieran Suckling, the executive director and founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group in San Francisco. "They are incapable of regulating the industry. Maybe it's time to put them out of their misery." Two months after the explosion on that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon platform, criticism of the federal government's uncoordinated response to the blowout disaster is growing.  Even using the government's conservative estimate of barrels leaked per day, the spill will eclipse Mexico's Ixtoc well this July 4th weekend when Gulf beaches are usually covered with bathers instead of toxic slime. It took 10 months for the Ixtoc well to be finally sealed.  The two relief wells now being drilled towards the ruptured wellbore are not a sure fire solution either, as Chairman Edward Markey of the House Energy & Environment Subcommittee points out in his letter to Tony Hayward, BP's party-time CEO. The Deepwater Horizon spill is only eclipsed by the deliberate opening of terminal valves by Iraqi forces during the Persian Gulf war, which dumping about 460 million gallons of oil into the sea. So far the BP blowout has spewed 71.2 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico.

Read more:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/10/93859/us-agency-lets-oil-industry-write.html#ixzz0sSrWeE4H

Nestlé Decides to Help Protect Forests

This story came across US Person's desk in May, but he was on safari for part of the time and the press of depressing information from the Gulf oil spill caused him to neglect an important victory for conservationists. Greenpeace announced on May 17th that Nestlé, the giant food products company, decided to change policy and stop using palm oil from companies that cause deforestation like Sinar Mas, notorious for its rainforest destruction in Indonesia. The expansion of palm oil plantations poses a serious threat to the remaining rainforest {20.6.07}. Sinar Mas controls 406,000 hectares of palm oil plantations and plans to develop another 1.3 million hectares for plantations on Papua New Guinea and Kalimantan Borneo. Greenpeace exposed the use of palm oil in Nestle's popular "Kit Kat" chocolate wafer bar. The commercial uses of palm oil are numerous. Besides food, cooking and fuel, it is an ingredient in toothpaste and cosmetics.

[image: www.kidsagainstpalmoil.com]

Oil Spill Begins to Affect Public Health

It is a story the COM will not feature, but you know it was only a matter of time. Local media is reporting the first effects of crude oil exposure in humans. Four hundred people have sought medical care--complaining of respiratory problems, headaches, nausea and eye irritation--after trips to Escambia County, Florida beaches. Nevertheless, the County's health department lifted a health advisory for Pensacola beach against the advice of a federal environmental official on Friday. Swimmers complained of petroleum smell and jelly-like petroleum substance clinging to their skin. Water samples have been taken, but results have not yet been reported publicly. Clean up workers are also reporting the effects of  exposure to petroleum and petroleum based dispersants. The flu like symptoms--headache, fatigue, nausea, and nervous system effects--have been reported by 74 clean up workers in Louisiana. Respirators are not being used, apparently because of BP's liability concerns, but protective gear may not be effective to prevent absorption of toxins such as benzene.  And if that isn't enough bad news, CNN reminds us that almost all of the Exxon Valdez clean up workers are dead. The average life span for those responders was 51 years.