Recapping Obama

For those of you or for your friends who do not follow politics on a regular basis and get your political impressions and decisioning courtesy of the mainstream media, complete with it's inherent bias, allow me to recap the Obama presidency for you in something that suits your passing fancy and/or short attention span.

Seriously.

The politics of a hurricane

Be Warned - I'm going to cut President Obama a little slack here.  But only a little.

It's tough being a leader in a natural disaster situation.  In 1999 the mayor of Toronto called in army to aid in a coming snow and ice storm of mammoth proportions.  Except the storm never materialized.  I don't recall specifically but I think there was less than an inch of snow.  The mayor was derided as an idiot from all quarters for a long time after that.  But if the mayor had done nothing and then the storm materialized, it would have been the same as it was for President Bush after Katrina (specific relevant issues of that situation aside for now).  

Click to enlarge.

The situation posed a virtual game theory 'no win' for him.  Just as with President Bush (who also had the issue of a state Governor who should have been doing a bunch of things that prevented him as President from being more proactive), the mayor had 4 possible scenarios that could have happened.

Permit Baby, Permit!

Late Friday, too late for any major inclusion in the news cycle and likely to be overlooked over the weekend, President Obama's Department of the Interior appealed the court ruling that gave it 30 days to make a decision to approve or deny several deep water drilling permits.  The latest stalling tactic, while not unexpected, is instructive as to the thinking behind the White House decisions.

Important lessons for conservatives from Obama - Part 2

Obama, on the left side of the post.

Just under two weeks ago I posted the first of what I thought were some important lessons for conservatives from President Obama - not just lessons in what to do but also in what not to do. Today I'm going to take a look at a DO item - being responsive. This lesson obviously applies specifically to governing conservatives in the upcoming Congress, and the reinforcing lesson from President Obama is just another piece of the lesson that the Republicans should have learned from their drubbings in the 2006, and 2008 elections.  Let's hope with the lesson being pounded home by the President's actions over the last two years, the Republicans, or most of them at least,  get it.  Being responsive is important to electoral success.  With the electorate seemingly better understanding the nature of the fiscal mess the government is in than the government itself understands, right now it's critical for the country's success as well.  Importantly,  being responsive is also a DON'T item in some respects, and there's a reason why.

Quick hit observations

Some quick observations this morning.

-When the unemployment rate for July is announced later this morning, I EXPECT an increase in the unemployment rate. Don't let them continue to clobber you with the unexpectedly adjective. If every increase had been that unexpected, we should fire the economists for repeated incompetence.

-RIM has been hit in Saudi Arabia with a ban on its messaging and other applications due to 'security concerns'. People can send messages without government being able to track it. So? How about banning burkas so people can't smuggle explosives? This is either political power concentration, economic protectionism or part of a local hysteria that has swept other countries in the Middle East. Perhaps all three.

-Is all that oil in the Gulf gone? Was Tony Hayward of BP right that it is a drop in the bucket? Or is it still a disaster and just hustled off the front pages to protect President Obama? Perhaps a bit of both.

8 things you didn't know about the Gulf oil spill

Here are a few apparently little known facts about the Gulf Oil Spill:

- the state of the art Deepwater Horizon drilling platform was made in South Korea.

-The name of the leaking oil reserve, Macondo is from a the name of a cursed town in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude".

- Anadarko, the minority partner with BP on the well, is likely to suffer a greater financial setback (relatively) than BP.

-The well is estimated to hold 50 million barrels of oil.

- Leaking at 60,000 barrels per day it would take approximately 833 days to drain the entire well.

- At Day 79, that represents almost 10% of the entire well spilled, if current spill estimated rates hold true.

-The offshore U.S. Gulf of Mexico is estimated to have over 1.5 billion barrels of oil reserves.

- There's a very cool tool here, to view the northern Florida coast and alerts in near real time.

The Politics of the Oil Spill

This is brilliant. I had to link to it.

Oil Spill Timeline from RightChange on Vimeo.

If only The One could stop that oil from flowing into the Gulf

President Obama - the messiah, the post-racial, post-partisan transformative figure that humbly proclaimed of his own nomination as Democratic candidate for President in St. Paul Minnesota on June 3, 2008 (emphasis added);

...I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals...

I guess that oil pouring out of the earth and into the ocean is part of that planetary healing...

The GOP is scanning my brain!

Back on May 30th I created and posted this video about President Obama's itinerary since the oil spill happened. Obviously he's been occupied elsewhere.

On June 16th, the GOP, ran with the idea in the video below and have already generated more than one thousand times the traffic that I did - with their slick fancy graphics and big budget and natural audience. Am I jealous? No. I think it's a good message to show people and I really don't think the GOP is checking out my youtube videos.

The obviousness of the point precludes the GOP stealing it from anyone - everyone knows the President is asleep at the wheel on the oil spill. Or should I say busy on the golf course?

Attention Coast Guard: Are You Kidding Me?

From ABC News,

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

"These barges work. You've seen them work. You've seen them suck oil out of the water," said Jindal.

So why stop now?

"The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'"

...But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

The governor said he didn't have the authority to overrule the Coast Guard's decision, though he said he tried to reach the White House to raise his concerns.

Bureaucracy is truly choking America.

Wait, who pays for laid off oil rig workers?

After meeting with President Obama, BP agreed to set aside a special $100 million to compensate oil workers laid off as a result of President Obama's six month moratorium on deep water drilling. Why does it feel more and more like the United States is operating at the whims of an emperor?

The Obama oil spill speech - what did we learn?

Last night's speech by President Obama on the oil spill was pretty much what I had predicted it would be. Act tough, blame BP, focus on the money first because they don't have a solution to the real problem of oil continuing to pour into the Gulf of Mexico.  But the President's speech showed us a great deal more than just a sorry excuse for an oil spill response.

Obama to say nothing meaningful tonight

It would be absolutely pointless for the President to go on the air tonight to speak to the American people while having nothing meaningful to say about the oil spill, right?  That doesn't mean he won't do it. The President will probably have a lot to say tonight but I doubt very much of it is going to be meaningful.  What he does say will likely amount to a bunch of promises about the future that aren't directly relevant to the current crisis.  If ever there was an instance of someone viewing a situation through only their own lenses, this has to be it.

Obama, 3 a.m. and the long walk from leadership

Is it just me, or will the President's switch from seeming nonchalance on the oil spill to one of potential face-time overkill something that isn't likely going to help his popularity too much?  He's dug himself a hole and there is no easy climb out of it here.

Obama Getting Tough When The Getting Is Politically Necessary

Stories like this that attempt to portray the President in a positive light used to make my head spin with their unbelievable bias.  Now I look at this sort of journalism storytelling from the AP as merely self-defeating for liberalism.  They aren't fooling too many people any more. And on some level they do seem to be figuring that out.

Oil Spill Implications For US Oil Production

According to a seemingly not well publicized Bloomberg report last week, President Obama's ban on deep water drilling has serious implications for future US oil output;

May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Energy companies are scrambling to cope with the extension of a deep-water drilling ban, a situation many never foresaw before BP Plc’s oil well began spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico last month.

President Barack Obama yesterday said the suspension is being lengthened by six months and work on 33 exploratory wells will be halted. The decision follows an April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and sent oil from BP’s Macondo well gushing toward the U.S. coast.

Companies can’t plan for an event such as the extended moratorium, said Gene Shiels, a spokesman for oilfield-services provider Baker Hughes Inc., based in Houston. The industry may move personnel and equipment to other markets, such as Brazil and West Africa, and may see job losses, he said.

“The spill is like the 1,000-year flood: it’s the worst- case scenario,” said Brian Youngberg, an analyst with Edward Jones in St. Louis. “It’s hard to prepare for those extreme situations like that.”

Obama also dropped plans to open waters off the coast of Virginia to drilling, canceled a lease sale in the Gulf, and suspended the permitting process for Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s planned wells off of Arctic Alaska. He said new safety rules will be imposed on offshore drilling.

U.S. oil output may be cut by 160,000 barrels a day next year as a result of the ban, according to Deutsche Bank AG. A one-year delay to deep-water projects would reduce global supplies by 500,000 barrels a day between 2013 and 2017, Sanford C. Bernstein said.

[Emphasis added.]

Needless to say, that's not a good thing.

I have a question for environmentalists about Al Gore

Note: I don't want to seem like I'm piling on here, given his recent separation. That may in part explain away my question. But not entirely. Marital problems don't spring up overnight and Al Gore during the course of those personal issues (however long that may have been) has been in the public eye and working on other things. But not lately. Which leads me to my question.

I have questions for environmentalists about Obama

If you believe Obama is a green President, and the White House is directing BP, then why hasn't he ordered the explosive destruction of the well at the source?

As BP prepares to lower a four-story, 70-ton dome over the oil gusher under the Gulf of Mexico, the Russians — the world’s biggest oil producers — have some advice for their American counterparts: nuke it.

Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: “the underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well’s channel.”

I'm not convinced the effort would require a nuclear detonation.  Something substantially smaller and localized could possibly do the trick.  I'm not even convinced it would necessarily work.  But it could stop the flow. It wouldn't take months - the US wouldn't have to wiat for BP either.  The federal government does have explosives.  But it would cost BP billions in lost revenue and alternate development costs. BP donated big to Obama's presidential campaign.

Obama's Oil Spill Schedule

A video that sums up the Top Priority oil spill;



Two vacations speaks volumes.

You own it Mr. President

President Obama seemed prepared to let BP twist in the wind alone on the Gulf oil spill. That is, he was prepared to do so until the Top Kill procedure looked like it might be successful.