Alaexander Hamilton, the first US Secretary of the Treasury, used the bait and switch to make a lot of money.

Bring back that instrument they used for Marie Antoinette or make them eat some oil dead clams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSMnmOZAwoU

vaugely watchable until he starts bashing his bible...

Nice take it or leave it deal for the fishermen...

Example...A fisherman/shrimper makes 150k a year now makes zero

Hired by BP to help clean toxic waste made 8k...That 8k will be deducted from any future payments for lost income deals....Yet they have been paid zero on the lost income so far.

I could only watch half of it because it was starting to make me sick.

No pronouncements from me, but I feel for those poor people that live there, and the younger generation who don't seem to really know or care what's going on. You can't drive around in your SUV, and then complain or bitch about BP.

A Second Disaster Coming to the Gulf? Hazards Abound for Cleanup Workers

Jason Anderson, one of 11 workers killed during April's Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, had warned his family that BP was pushing speed-up and straying from safety protocols.

Without a union to take his concerns to, Jason turned to his wife, Shelly. "Everything seemed to be pressing to Jason, about getting things in order, in case something happened," Shelly confessed during an NBC interview.

Today, 27,000 workers in the BP-run Gulf cleanup effort may still be in danger. Some are falling sick, and the long-term effects of chemical exposure for workers and residents are yet unknown.

Workers lack power on the job to demand better safety enforcement. They fear company retaliation if they speak out and are wary of government regulators who have kept BP in the driver's seat.

BP carries a history of putting profit before worker safety. A 2005 refinery explosion in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 and injured another 108 workers. The Chemical Safety Board investigation resulted in a 341-page report stating that BP knew of "significant safety problems at the Texas City refinery and at 34 other BP business units around the world" months before the explosion.

One internal BP memo made a cost-benefit analysis of types of housing construction on site in terms of the children's story "The Three Little Pigs." "Brick" houses—blast-resistant ones—might save a few "piggies," but was it worth the initial investment?

BP decided not, costing several workers' lives. Federal officials found more than 700 safety violations at Texas City and fined BP more than $87 million in 2009, but the corporation has refused to pay.

BP NO EXCEPTION

According to the Steelworkers union, the oil industry saw 13 fires that caused 19 deaths and 25 injuries during April and May alone, including Deepwater Horizon. Oil refineries across the U.S. averaged a fire each week.

Jim Savage, local president at a south Philadelphia refinery, sits on the USW's national refinery bargaining council. Savage said BP is no exception. Safety violations are rampant in the industry, especially in the hectic final 12 hours before production starts up—the same period when the Deepwater disaster took place.

The Steelworkers requested in early July that the oil giants reopen bargaining over health and safety, after they turned aside the union's proposals in negotiations last year. The oil firms have refused.

CLEANUP RISKS

Now workers in the cleanup effort face similar challenges to those Jason Anderson and his 10 slain co-workers woke up to each morning. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy analyst Hugh Kaufman says workers are being exposed to a "toxic soup," and face dangers like those in the Exxon Valdez, Love Canal, and 9/11 cleanups.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez experience should have taught us about the health fallouts of working with oil and chemical cleaners, but tests to determine long-term effects on those workers were never done, by either the company or OSHA. It appears they have faced health problems far beyond any warnings given by company or government officials while the work was going on.

Veterans of that cleanup, such as supervisor Merle Savage, reported coming down with the same flu-like symptoms during their work that Gulf cleanup workers are now experiencing. Savage, along with an estimated 3,000 cleanup workers, has lived 20 years with chronic respiratory illness and neurological damage.

A 2002 study from a Spanish oil spill showed that cleanup workers and community members have increased risk of cancer and that workers with long-term exposure to crude oil can face permanent DNA damage.

So far, Louisiana has records of 128 cleanup workers becoming sick with flu-like symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, and headaches, after exposure to chemicals on the job. BP recorded 21 short hospitalizations. When seven workers from different boats were hospitalized with chemical exposure symptoms, BP executives dismissed the illnesses as food poisoning.

BP bosses have told workers to report to BP clinics only and not to visit public hospitals, where their numbers can be recorded by the state.

Surgeon General Regina Benjamin has said that without the benefit of studies, or even knowing the chemical makeup of the Corexit 9500 dispersant (which its manufacturer calls a "trade secret"), scientific opinion is divided on long-term health impacts to the region.

Workers in the Gulf are not receiving proper training or equipment, says Mark Catlin, an occupational hygienist who was sent to the Exxon Valdez site by the Laborers union.

EQUIPMENT LACKING

BP has said it will provide workers with respirators and proper training if necessary, but the company has yet to deem the situation a health risk for workers. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) provided respirators to some workers directly, but BP forbade them to use them.

One rationale behind banning respirators is that they could increase the likelihood of heat-related illnesses, but Kindra Arnsen, an outspoken wife of a sick fisherman turned cleanup worker, points out that many workers are fishermen accustomed to the Gulf heat who can work safely given enough hydration and time for breaks.

Workers who question the safety of their assignments, choose to wear their own safety equipment, or speak out about the risks are threatened with losing their jobs, according to Arnsen and LEAN's executive director Marylee Orr.

Arnsen has also spoken out in fear for her community of Venice, Louisiana. She describes illnesses and rashes her young children and husband have suffered since the explosion and cleanup and says there are days when officials tell residents to stay indoors.

PR POWER

The Center for Research on Globalization has speculated that banning respirators and other protective gear for workers is part of BP's public relations campaign to control how bad the disaster looks. This follows a pattern of threatening reporters who get too close to the hardest-hit areas, blocking media access to workers, exaggerating claims of mitigation of the spill's impact, and using dispersants that make much of the oil invisible.

Both the EPA and OSHA have criticized BP's safety plan, which allows workers without respirators to stay in an area when air pollutants are high, doesn't evacuate workers when conditions become unsafe, and contains no upper limits of exposure to carcinogenic gases found in crude oil.

Catlin, the occupational hygienist, says the protocol seems to be written in a way that allows BP to continue operating under conditions that, in other settings, would halt work.

Fishery industry organizations have joined with environmental groups to demand respirators and other safety equipment and training for workers. The coalition has launched bpmakesmesick.com, aimed at pressuring the Obama administration to better enforce health codes during the cleanup.

Donnyboy:

I couldn't find a link to your article. I would like to know the source of the article and who wrote it.

Are you able to provide a link?

Donnyboy:

I couldn't find a link to your article. I would like to know the source of the article and who wrote it.

Are you able to provide a link?

The first line in his post is a hyperlink

http://www.labornotes.org/2010/07/second-disaster-coming-gulf-hazards-abound-cleanup-workers

TV should use color on their hypers like others then it would show better.

Donnyboy:

I couldn't find a link to your article. I would like to know the source of the article and who wrote it.

Are you able to provide a link?

The first line in his post is a hyperlink

http://www.labornotes.org/2010/07/second-disaster-coming-gulf-hazards-abound-cleanup-workers

TV should use color on their hypers like others then it would show better.

Thanks for the information.

My assumption was correct that the article must have been written by a labor organization.

Here is some of today's news on the gusher:

______________________________________________________

Gulf boats having trouble finding any oil: US official

(AFP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — Some 750 boats drafted in to scoop up oil from the Gulf of Mexico are having "trouble" finding any crude in the sea, a top US official said Wednesday, almost a week after a busted well was capped.

"We are starting to have trouble finding oil," US pointman Admiral Thad Allen, who is in charge of handling the government's response, told reporters.

The boats, which have been drafted in to skim oil off the surface of the Gulf, are "really having to search for the oil in some cases" around the area of the capped well, he added.

According to official US government figures, more than 270,000 barrels of oil (11.3 million gallons) have been burned in controlled operations since the start of the spill in April.

That is more than all the crude that spilled into the seas off Alaska in the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.

The US government also said that some 34.6 million gallons of oil water had been recovered from the Gulf since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in April.

BP finally managed to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf on Thursday, when a new 30-foot (10-meter) giant cap was put in place.

The government has allowed BP to keep the cap shut since then, extending permission in 24-hour stints.

Allen said some of the boats used in the skimming operations were being brought ashore for repairs, as attention turned more towards cleaning up the oil that has already washed ashore along five Gulf coasts.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hkmir-yGBuclKUXtje0SJQ1d9IKQ

Here is some of today's news on the gusher:

______________________________________________________

Gulf boats having trouble finding any oil: US official

Was that not the point of dumping all that deadly corexit into the ocean

(gotta love that name...corexit )

Sink the oil.....hey what oil?

Here is some of today's news on the gusher:

______________________________________________________

Gulf boats having trouble finding any oil: US official

Was that not the point of dumping all that deadly corexit into the ocean

(gotta love that name...corexit )

Sink the oil.....hey what oil?

exactly,.

what they cant see right? short term fix again to limit the damage...... to the bottom line, again

Was that not the point of dumping all that deadly corexit into the ocean

(gotta love that name...corexit )

Sink the oil.....hey what oil?

exactly,.

what they cant see right? short term fix again to limit the damage...... to the bottom line, again

But me thinks this short term fix will have long term consequences in the form of toxic protein source for many & assorted cancers for clean up crews.

Would be very interesting for a sub with cameras to give us a glimpse of what now lies below the surface.

Of course that would probably be a felony offense under the current administration

This is from almost one year ago exactly. I wonder what the status is now?

Page last updated at 21:37 GMT, Wednesday, 29 July 2009 22:37 UK

Russia to drill for oil off Cuba

Russia is to begin oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, after signing a deal with Cuba, says Cuban state media. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin signed four contracts securing exploration rights in Cuba's economic zone in the Gulf.

Havana says there may be some 20bn barrels of oil of its coast but the US puts that estimate at five billion.

Russia and Cuba have been working to revitalise relations, which cooled after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia's Zarubezhneft oil concern will work alongside the Cubapetroleo monopoly in the deep waters of the Gulf.

"Every time I travel through the region, I come to Cuba to advance our joint economic-commercial projects, and I take every opportunity to communicate with my colleagues," Mr Sechin told local media.

Under the new agreement, Russia has also granted a loan of $150m to buy construction and agricultural equipment.

Havana imports more than half of its oil, mostly at a subsidised price from Venezuela.

Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico was established in 1977, when it signed treaties with the United States and Mexico.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) recently estimated that as much as 9bn barrels of oil and 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie within that zone, in the North Cuba Basin.