|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Richard Brookhiser
$10.72
By Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper
$10.17
$40
|
|
|
|
Abode of Chaos (CC-BY)
|
By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica —
Two years after a series of gambles and ill-advised decisions on a BP drilling project led to the largest accidental oil spill in United States history and the death of 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, no one has been held accountable.
|
U.S. Navy / MC2 Justin E. Stumberg
|
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who will ultimately put a price tag on the worst oil spill in American history if the many lawsuits against BP go to trial, has given the oil giant and its many, many plaintiffs another week to reach a settlement.
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
Halliburton just seems to pop up wherever trouble can be found, such as the Bush White House (through Dick Cheney’s chummy history with the company) and also in the ecopocalypse that was the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in April 2010.
|
AP / Charlie Riedel
|
One might think that after the ecological apocalypse that British Petroleum visited upon the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding environs with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010, BP might harbor a healthy sense of shame about returning to that scarred region. Yeah, no.
|
Flickr / amerune (CC-BY)
|
Just over one year out from the BP oil spill that wreaked havoc up and down the Gulf Coast, the tourism industry there is so far having one of its best summers in years. BP is latching on to the good news, using it to argue in a court filing recently ... (more)
|
Flickr / Philipp Bosch (CC-BY-SA)
|
After roughly 42,000 gallons of oil spewed into the Yellowstone River in Montana last weekend, federal documents show that Exxon Mobil officials were not candid with the public about the length of time it took to seal the burst pipe. (more)
|
Flickr / Ulrich Latzenhofer
|
U.K.-based Cairn Energy suspended deep-water drilling operations on a platform off the southwest coast of Greenland after Greenpeace activists boarded the rig to demand the release of the company’s unpublished oil spill response plan. (more)
|
|
“The 2010 Gulf of Mexico blowout brought more than oil to the surface,” writes Carl Safina in his new book investigating the impact of the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout.
|
AP / Patrick Semansky
|
Looking back over the disastrous BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year, an internal review by the U.S. Coast Guard has concluded that the seagoing service was poorly prepared for such an event and that the cleanup itself was riddled with planning failures.
|
U.S. Coast Guard
|
Even Wall Street executives have to be smacking their heads over this one. The company that ran the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (before it exploded, killing 11 and filling the Gulf of Mexico with oil) has decided to give its executives bonuses for achieving “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.” There are no words ...
|
The Pug Father (CC-BY)
|
Scientists at the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies are investigating unusually high numbers of stillborn and aborted dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico region. Seventeen infant dolphins have washed up on shore so far this year, compared to an average of one or two a month, says one scientist. (more)
|
reid.senate.gov
|
The 111th Congress produced some real eleventh-hour gains for the Obama administration, and by extension the president’s party, but some Democrats, such as Sen. Harry Reid and outgoing Sen. Arlen Specter, aren’t ready to get over some of the biggest partisan clashes of the last two years.
|
|
By Richard Reeves — This year was a game-changer, and what we need is a game-changer list. On that kind of list, I would drop one-off sensations, beginning with the oil spill, the Haitian earthquake and the mine rescue. No. 1 would be WikiLeaks.
|
Wikimedia Commons / World Economic Forum
|
The BBC gets the ball rolling in this article about four big companies’ sub-stellar performance in 2010, and it should come as no surprise that BP figures in among that unfortunate set. But, dear readers, this list is focused on the UK and Asia—can you think of more from this side of the globe?
|
U.S. Coast Guard / Petty Officer 2nd Class John Miller
|
Attorney General Eric Holder says the government is going after nine companies involved with the Deepwater Horizon spill “for government removal costs, economic losses and environmental damages without limitation.” ... (more)
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
British Petroleum is still sloughing off assets to help cover its $40 billion fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil giant just sold a majority stake in Pan American Energy for $7 billion, putting its running total of recent asset sales at $21 billion.
Posted on Nov 28, 2010
READ MORE 
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
A government commission looking into last spring’s eco-pocalypse in the Gulf of Mexico has detected a certain “culture of complacency” afoot at the trio of big companies implicated in the spill. Sounds about right.
|
U.S. Coast Guard
|
Three of four tests showed that the cement mixture used by Halliburton in the construction of BP’s ill-fated oil well in the Gulf was unstable, but the mixture was used anyway, a presidential commission investigating the disaster has found. The only successful test, which BP did not know about, has since come under suspicion.
|
Flickr / dsearis
|
After clamping down and imposing a ban on offshore drilling in the wake of last spring’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday that the moratorium is over and, as he put it, “We are open for business.”
|
|
Those nerds at MIT have come up with something really amazing (not the first time). It’s a swarm of autonomous robots that talk to each other as they make their way around a spill, gobbling up the oil. Why didn’t we think of that?
|
|
Pat Bagley, Cagle Cartoons, Salt Lake Tribune —
Posted on Oct 8, 2010
READ MORE 
|
bbc.co.uk
|
His tenure as BP’s chief executive is almost up, and outgoing CEO Tony Hayward has changed his tune about the effect that last spring’s cataclysmic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had on him personally, making public statements on Wednesday that sounded ... (continued)
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
That whole Gulf of Mexico oil spill thing? It wasn’t just BP’s fault—or so says BP. The oily megacorp released an internal report Wednesday that pointed to “multiple companies and work teams” that also, in BP’s humble estimation, shoulder some of the blame for the disaster.
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
New estimates of the cost of the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico have jumped to a staggering $8 billion, up $2 billion in August alone as the company announced it had already paid out almost $400 million in claims to individuals affected by the spill.
|
Wikimedia Commons / David Shankbone
|
It’s hardly a surprise that Spike Lee would have something provocative to say about a newsy controversy, but Lee doesn’t spare President Obama his criticism over Obama’s handling of the BP oil spill catastrophe ... (continued)
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
Previously undisclosed documents have measured the economic impact of the U.S. federal moratorium on deep-water oil drilling at 23,000 jobs lost and billions of dollars in frozen investment. Federal officials went ahead with the ban, now tied up in court, because they distrusted industry safety equipment and standards.
|
U.S. Coast Guard / Ensign Michael P. McGrew
|
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is raining on Uncle Sam and BP’s well-capping parade. Researchers at the institute say a 22-mile-long, 1.2-mile-wide oil plume deep under the Gulf’s surface is degrading much slower than the government’s more optimistic claims.
|
Flickr / Bryan Brenner (CC-BY)
|
Americans get half of their shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, but that was before it was contaminated by 190 million gallons of oil and 2 million gallons of chemical dispersant. Shrimp season officially started Monday, but it will be some time before we know whether the ravaged Gulf waters—and American appetites—are up to it.
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
The great state of Alabama has announced it will sue BP, Transocean and Halliburton for the “catastrophic harm” that followed from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — Flying back to Washington from Pensacola, Fla., on June 15, President Obama and the man he put in charge of handling the Gulf oil spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, had a come-to-Jesus talk.
|
U.S. Coast Guard / Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley
|
BP has paid $3 billion into the relief fund promised President Obama, including $319 million already paid to victims of the Gulf oil spill, but it will be years before the $20 billion escrow account is fully funded.
|
SpillCam / globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam
|
Someone should tell BP that the whole kill-speak approach does not bode well when you’re actually killing wildlife and industry in the Gulf. But nonetheless, BP says the mud and cement pumped into the blown-out oil well, termed a “static kill,” are holding and that it is preparing to seal the deal with a “bottom kill” later this month.
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
By this point, many American news consumers are way more up on the intricacies of oil well technology, and the emergency repair strategies associated with same, than they ever thought they’d be—and the fun isn’t over yet.
|
AP
|
An oil spill following a pipeline explosion in China’s Yellow Sea could be much bigger than the government is admitting. The Chinese government says 1,500 tons of oil was spilled, but an American expert who visited the scene says it may actually be 50 times that figure, putting it on the order of the Exxon Valdez disaster.
|
International Bird Rescue Research Center / WikiCommons
|
Relying primarily on a controversial Louisiana expert with previous ties to BP but also quoting a leader of the Audubon Society, Time magazine has posted a contrarian report arguing that the environmental damage of the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been overblown.
|
|
Martin Sutovec, Slovakia —
Posted on Jul 28, 2010
READ MORE
|
bbc.co.uk
|
Will $32.2 billion be enough to foot the bill for the tremendous mess the BP oil spill has made of the Gulf of Mexico? The higher-ups at the oil company seem to think so—at least for now. (continued)
|
Wikimedia Commons / World Economic Forum
|
It’s kind of amazing that BP’s beleaguered CEO, Tony Hayward, is still in play at this point, but he may not last much longer, as the oil company’s board members were slated to debate his fate Monday evening.
|
AP / Reed Saxon
|
By Deanne Stillman — When speaking of the natural world, for good reason we often turn to Native American myth. Turtle carries the world on its back is what many of these myths tell us; we are all citizens on turtle island.
|
|
Today on the list: The places that make the Gulf spill look like a national park, Elizabeth Warren (yay) vs. Timothy Geithner (boo), Syria bans the veil, and the strange things men pay prostitutes to do (as if you don’t already know).
Posted on Jul 19, 2010
READ MORE
|
bbc.co.uk
|
“It is important we don’t get ahead of ourselves,” President Obama said Friday as he weighed in on BP’s latest attempt at containing the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill with a “larger, more sophisticated cap.”
|
|
The financial regulation bill that finally passed has many flaws; chief among them, says Arianna Huffington in this meeting of the “Left, Right & Center” minds, is that it doesn’t prevent the “too big to fail” phenomenon from happening again.
Posted on Jul 15, 2010
READ MORE 
|
NASA
|
After nearly three months of dumping between 92 million and 327 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP announced Thursday that it has stopped the leak. The oil giant will monitor the well’s pressure while the rest of us hold our breath.
|
AP / Carolyn Kaster
|
By Robert Scheer — The flight from reason that now marks American public discourse came home for me last Friday when I found myself on public radio debating whether Barack Obama is anti-business.
|
AP / Patrick Semansky
|
Let’s not get too excited here, but word on the street—fine, word in several major news outlets on Tuesday—has it that BP was about to try out yet another cap designed to maybe, possibly contain the oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf of Mexico. But this is only a test.
|
|
Fake News by Andy Borowitz —
Based on the record ratings for its special featuring LeBron James’ announcement of his new team, ESPN announced that instead of airing NBA games, it would schedule two-hour specials showing the rich guy cashing his ginormous paychecks.
|
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
Say ‘Hi-Ho!’ as They Strip-Search You
Newsletter 
Become a Fan
Follow Us
Subscribe
