Oil Spill Apocalypse: The Slick that Ate the Atlantic Seaboard

Supercomputer models from Los Alamos now show that the Deepwater Horizon oil slick will grow into monstrous proportions, swinging around the tip of Florida to devour the entire US Eastern seaboard in a massive slime of oily chocolate goo. Supercomputer models cannot lie, they lack the devious impulse of deception which compels humans.

And yet, historically, the Deepwater Horizon spill does not look so bad next to other oil spills.

This chart comes from scientist Roy Spencer via Author Jerry Pournelle via Rush Limbaugh's website. A circuitous route for a simple chart of historical spill data? Yes indeed. Why in the world would anyone have to go as far as Rush Limbaugh's website to find simple historical data that might provide perspective to an ongoing disaster? What happened to the all-encompassing information media? Is the media not supposed to be providing us with such information?

A simple historical chart is not nearly as impressive as a supercomputer model from Los Alamos! But history is real -- in the sense that it happened. A supercomputer model is high tech beyond the comprehension of most people, but a model is not real -- it is not even data. It is only a sophisticated hypothesis.

In the course of all the larger volume oil spills in history, have we ever seen an oil slick -- even one that was left alone to wander about the oceans as it will -- that enveloped an entire continent, or set of continents?

OceanWorld
What we are seeing in the Deepwater Horizon disaster is a bona fide catastrophe that is being used opportunistically by the news media and a motley crew of politicians, lawyers, activists, academics, and other cravers-of-fame to jump into the limelight and attempt to gain some advantage. Perhaps monetary gain, or a greater budget, more influence, academic clout -- what have you.

The public is already stirred into a daily frenzy by predictions of climate apocalypse from carbon dioxide. Peak oil doom is also enjoying a resurgence, thanks to the shutdown of oil drilling by Obama Pelosi, and all the infamy surrounding the DWH oil spill. What are the possible motivations for driving the public herd to stampede in panic?

For the lawyers, environmental activists, academics, and the media, the disaster is the main event. They seek to explode and exploit the catastrophe for maximum personal gain. The politicians have that motive, but they have an additional -- even larger motive. As much as Obama is tainted by Deepwater Horizon, the oil spill serves as a vital distraction from far worse problems hovering overhead. If you can see clearly the things that the Obama Pelosi gang are working so hard to obscure, you may have a chance to avoid the worst of what is coming.

PS: For those who are concerned that the Deep Horizon oil spill will circle around the world's oceans until it smothers all life on Earth, consider all the bacteria that have been evolving for billions of years to consume hydrocarbons of all kinds. And consider the natural processes perpetually at work in the oceans, to break solid and liquid hydrocarbons into their constituent atoms:

OceanWorld

A Stupid Stumbling Into Spain's Green Quagmire

On eight occasions, the occupant of the White House referred to the Spanish model as an example to follow. The paradox is that it is a model that Obama himself wants Spain to abandon, as made clear in his call to Zapatero last week in which he asked him to change his strategy on the crisis. _La Gaceta (English translation,)

For every green job created by the Spanish government, Alvarez found that 2.2 jobs were destroyed elsewhere in the economy because resources were directed politically and not rationally, as in a market economy. _IBD

ImageSource PDF
The US President Obama has bought into Spain's "green economic miracle" lock, stock, and barrel. According to Mr. Obama, the way of the "Spanish green" will be the path to widespread economic prosperity, employment, and well-being for all. Unfortunately for the US president, the Spanish green has proven to be a mass delusion of lies, incompetence, and criminality.

The president of the United States, Barack Obama, doesn’t seem to have chosen the right model to copy for his “green economy,” Spain. After the government of José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero demonized a study of different experts about the fatal economic consequences of renewable energies, an internal document from the Spanish cabinet that it is even more negative has just been leaked.

To one of the authors of the first report, Gabriel Calzada, “the government has leaked it intentionally in order to turn the media against renewable energies and to be stronger in negotiations with businesses.”

Because even though Zapatero himself opposes abandoning his grand bet, some voices — such as the minister of Industry, Miguel Sebastián — are beginning to express their worry over the enormous debt that has been generated by the investment in so-called clean energies, which could even delay Spain’s exit from the economic crisis.

On eight occasions, the occupant of the White House referred to the Spanish model as an example to follow. The paradox is that it is a model that Obama himself wants Spain to abandon, as made clear in his call to Zapatero last week in which he asked him to change his strategy on the crisis.

The internal report of the Spanish administration admits that the price of electricity has gone up, as well as the debt, due to the extra costs of solar and wind energy. Even the government numbers indicate that each green job created costs more than 2.2 traditional jobs, as was shown in the report of the Juan de Mariana Institute. Besides that, the official document is almost a copy point by point of the one that led to Calzada being denounced [lit. "vetoed"] by the Spanish Embassy in an act in the U.S. Congress.

The presentation recognizes explicitly that “the increase of the electric bill is principally due to the cost of renewable energies.” In fact, the increase in the extra costs of this industry explains more than 120% of the variation in the bill and has prevented the reduction in the costs of conventional electricity production to be reflected on the bills of the citizens. _La Gaceta_via_PJMedia

Anyone who has taken the time to educate himself about wind energy and "green energy" could have predicted the horrendous economic fallout for Spain and any other jurisdiction that fell for the slimed over green sales pitch.

And tragically, in the US, it is states such as California and Massacussetts -- states already drowning in public sector union obligation debt -- who are falling head over heels for the ruinous green energy scam.

You may be thinking that this economic quagmire is just one of many economic quagmires that Mr. Obama is leading the US into -- the greatest quagmire being the massive acceleration of government debt accumulation. You would be correct to a certain extent, but energy in a high tech society is the same as prosperity, and very close to life itself for the masses. Without energy there is no food and without food there is starvation, disease, insurrection, and widespread death. Without energy there is no industry, commerce, nor jobs.

The green Spanish quagmire represents not only an increase in economic hardship, unemployment, and a massive waste of resources. It represents the intentional neglect of genuine energy -- which is the neglect of life.

Update: More on the "Green Jobs Myth"

For every green job created by the Spanish government, Alvarez found that 2.2 jobs were destroyed elsewhere in the economy because resources were directed politically and not rationally, as in a market economy.

"The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices," the professor told the press.

Alvarez's findings, of course, were rejected by the environmental left, which tried to smear him as a stooge of the oil industry.

But inconveniently for the eco-conscious, his results have been backed up by Carlo Stagnaro and Luciano Lavecchia, a couple of researchers from the Italian think tank Istituto Bruno Leoni. _IBD

A Late Comprehending of Obama's Incompetence

It has been a year of fecklessness, amateurism, and posturing. Less that is useful has been accomplished by this president in his first year than by any president since Herbert Hoover, and he was ambushed by the Great Depression after seven months. _Ntl.Post

You would have to go farther back in history than Herbert Hoover to find a US president as incompetent as Obama. But far worse than his incompetence is his unshakable belief in his own destiny to determine the fate of the world according to his inner whimsies.

Withal, this president seems overwhelmingly confident, strangely detached,....'cold and faux eloquent.' He is fluent and sonorous, but rather vapid.

...For all the claims that the Republicans are too influenced by religious zealots and country club knuckle-draggers, the administration may be in the hands of 'redistributive,' pacifistic Kool Aid drinkers. ConradBlack

Unemployment rose in 43 states in December 09. The state of California is on the brink of economic collapse. Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and several other Obama strongholds are not far behind. Even the labour unions -- among Obama's staunchest supporters -- cannot escape the fallout of incompetence emanating from ground zero of Doombama. Consequently, union membership is growing among government employees but falling in the productive sector -- where everyone is suffering.

The middle class has always been a bulwark against collectivists and dictators. And the US middle class is starting to wake up to the reality of Obama. It is growing angry.

The frustration of the middle class is the angry confusion of people who can appreciate the opportunities Big Government denies them. It is the anxiety of those who hear the businesses who employ them relentlessly demonized, while the ruling class is never held responsible for its foolishness, waste, and theft. It is the resentment of people who suffer through disasters that President Obama and his allies regard as opportunities. It’s the hearty distrust of a State, and its media apparatus, that declares every frigid blast of bad economic news to be “unexpected” – but expects us to believe it can predict market fluctuations, technological advances, and even the global climate.

The President says “I have every interest in seeing a unified country solving big problems.” The rest of us have an interest in being allowed to pursue our individual solutions to those problems, according to the liberties our Constitution says belong to us as absolutely as our souls. We can see the wreckage of those “unified” solutions strewn through our past, and littering the rest of the world. Our frustration is born of intelligence and moral strength, not stubborn blindness. _TheGreenroom

There is nothing new about Obama's incompetence. What is new is the growing public comprehension of the invisible nature of the emperor's suit. Obama has always lacked leadership ability. But the news and entertainment media have been willing to provide a smokescreen to hide the man's incompetence -- until now.

It was easy to get caught up in the Obama crusade -- for those who had never had an original thought, for those who had nothing truly important to accomplish, and for those who saw an opportunity to advance their own selfish goals under the cover of a populist crusade. But as the destruction grows and as failure mounts, it is not so easy to ignore the sense of an approaching abyss.

Can politics save a nation from the disaster that politics has created? No. But it can delay and mitigate the disaster long enough for the more thoughtful and competent ones to prepare.

Obama: Incompetence Beyond Redemption

There are different types of incompetence. There is the incompetence of inexperience, which may go away with time, training, and hard knocks. Then there is the incompetence of set ideological trajectory. That type of incompetence is incapable of learning from mistakes. It is doomed to spectacular failure with huge collateral damage. That is the type of incompetence that Obama and his incoming administration--along with the new Congress--possess.

All around the web, one hears the voices of the loyal opposition loudly proclaim that they are willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt--at least until February. That is quite sporting of them, actually, and also quite stupid. It is like a New Orleans resident saying that he will give Hurricane Katrina the benefit of a doubt, at least for a day or two after the city begins flooding. Not very bright and certainly not prescient.

Obama is a disaster written in neon lights by everything that we know about the man, his associates, his backers, and what he has been done since his election. With a clueless executive and an out of control ideologically rabid congress on the loose, the disasters borne of incompetence could come fast and furious.

Government is turning into the most significant problem for US citizens in their entire lives. In the name of "looking out for the little guy", the new reich promises to destroy every opportunity for private sector advancement, startups, saving, and other traditional methods of working one's own way up in the world. Instead, Obama offers endless taxes, regulations, the shutdown of most large sources of vital energy and power supply, a huge open door for labour unions to takeover whole industries, and a cordial invitation to trial lawyers to tear down what little can be built up in an environment wholly hostile to business and industry.

If you are a person of conscience who is a military member, or a civil service worker, what do you do when your own government and employer declares war on US Constitutional rights and liberties? What do you do when the government goes on the attack against the producer classes, chokes off innovation, starves the nation of vital energy? You retire if you can. If not, what are the choices--not only for government workers of integrity but for anyone with a lot to lose from the oppressive neo-fascist style of government that Obama and cohorts appear to be bringing into existence?

The answer to that question will be the topic of a series of postings at various Al Fin blogs over the next several weeks. The question is one that psychological neotenates and the academically lobotomised will never ask. But the rest of us have no choice.

The answer will not involve violence or open insurrection. When the extreme hardship consequences of the incoming reich's policies hits the population, the violence that naturally results will be something that Al Fin readers should know how to avoid and protect against. There will be plenty of anger and violence without more informed and aware people adding to it.

Some bloggers are discussing various destinations in the world, to sit out the Obamapocalypse and Obamageddon. I am not ready to set my escape in motion as of yet. North America has been one of my favourite parts of the world for a long time. I am not prepared to abandon this amazing continent, yet.

Scattered throughout North America are large numbers of enclaves of semi-autonomous regions, with their own governments, law enforcement, and internal rules of law. Besides the official semi-autonomous enclaves are many unofficial semi-autonomous enclaves of various degrees of functionality. It should not be too difficult to devise a network of quasi-invisible, semi-autonomous enclaves of cooperating groups, functioning with minimal contact with the US or Canadian federal governments.

Do not expect ideological, ethnic, religious, or even linguistic homogeneity among these groups. Only a cooperative dedication to freedom. Time to start building, and no time to spare.