I’m alone because the other divers with me wouldn’t get in the water without Hazmat suits on, and with my mask oiled over and the water already dark, I don’t dive deep. It’s quiet, and to be honest scary, with extremely low visibility. I spend just 10 minutes swimming around taking pictures, taking video. I want people to see the spill in a new way, a way they haven’t yet. I also want to get out of the water. Badly. I make my way to the back of the boat unaware of just how covered I am. To be honest, I probably look a little like one of those poor pelicans we’ve all been seeing for days now. The oil is thick and sticky, almost like a cake batter. It does not wipe off. You have to scrape it off, in layers, until you finally get close to the skin. Then you pour on some Dawn dishwashing soap and scrub. I think to myself: No fish, no bird, no turtle would ever be able to clean this off itself. If any animal were to end up in this same puddle, there is almost no way it could escape. The cleaning process goes on for half an hour before the captain will even think about letting me back in the boat. I’m clean, so I stand up. But the bottoms of my feet still had oil, and I fall back in the water. The process starts again. Another 30 minutes of cleaning, and finally I’m ready to step into the boat.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jun/09/ap-journalist-dives-gulf-can-only-see-oil/news-breaking/

http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

Enter you home city and you’ll see how large the spill is in relation to where you live. It pretty amazing that it would cover the entire state of Florida and them some…already. Check it out, its a neat tool for a horrible situation.

The Senate just voted, 96-0, to audit the Federal Reserve. Soon, we will know what the Federal Reserve did with the trillions of dollars that it handed out during the financial crisis.

A few months ago, such a vote would have been unthinkable. One senior Treasury official claimed he would fight to stop an audit ‘at all costs’. Senator Chris Dodd predicted that an audit would spell economic doom, while Senator Judd Gregg attacked accountability for the Fed as “pandering populism”.

Today, both the Treasury Department and Senator Dodd support this amendment. As for Judd Gregg, he was just on the floor of the Senate discussing — of all people — 19th century populist Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.

What happened?

• Alan Grayson’s diary

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.”

Yes! It’s so simple, in fact, that the Soviet Union, a major oil exporter, used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities. The first happened in Uzbekistan, on September 30, 1966 with a blast 1.5 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb and at a depth of 1.5 kilometers. KP also notes that subterranean nuclear blasts were used as much as 169 times in the Soviet Union to accomplish fairly mundane tasks like creating underground storage spaces for gas or building canals.

As a former international athlete and long time soccer player, I’ve worked with Olympic trainers, top college coaches, and even a few well known professional coaches in my past. Training as an athlete was mentally simple, you can always find a goal to push you to that next level when times get tough. I started lifting weights as a 4th grader to make up for my size and to not be knocked off the ball. My freshman year of high school, I had the 2nd highest bench press and the fastest 40 yard dash time in the school, out of all freshmen playing athletics. I would run 3 miles before school at 6am, then more during lunch at the track, practice with my school team and go straight to my club teams practices. If you were sore or felt bad, well you know what, that team down the roads star player isn’t sick and he’s been sprinting his tail off for weeks. I could find motivation in anything on or around the field. You look at me wrong now, I’m going to toast you later. You out run me today, I’m going to work harder than anyone you’ve met to make sure that never happens again. And I did just that. I can not think of a single individual goal I set that I didn’t achieve with this mindset in sports.

Instead of taking one of the 30+ offers to go to school for free and play ball, I made the 18 year old mistake of wanting to party and meet people instead of continuing with my soccer career. At my peak fitness levels I had 6 pack abs, bench pressed 90 lbs over my weight, ran NFL caliber 40’s and could knock out 5-6 minute miles for hours. I was 5 ft 8 and 165 lbs.

Over the last 9+ years of fast food, beer, soda’s, chips, and a hatred for running in the Florida heat, left me at 195 lbs. I’ve dropped 10-20 lbs here and there in the past but never stayed on a solid routine for longer than 20-30 days. Even back  in school, I had pizza and cookies for lunch, drank beer on weekends and enjoyed numerous sodas daily. Though I’ve trained hard in the past, until recently, I’d never fully incorporated a top level diet into my plan.

For the past 3 weeks, I’ve eaten better than any point during my life. I dropped 20 lbs quickly and put on a lot of new muscle. I haven’t consumed any of the following items since before March 19th: Fast food, soda, coffee, energy drinks, candy, or alcohol. I also stay away from sodium and bad carbs as much as possible, esp at night.

During this time I’ve learned so much about what to eat, when to eat it, what it does to/for your body and how your body burns off the food you eat. I have been eating chicken breast, steak, tuna, salad, veggies, almonds, cottage cheese, eggs, apples, blueberries, pineapple, protein shakes and water exclusively. I’m also taking vitamins, omega 3, and a few other supplements. I skate or ride the bike for 30-60 mins daily, along with walking/running the lake or nature trails 3 times a week. I lift weights for an hour or so 2-3 separate times daily depending on which muscles I’m targeting and how much time is available. I have also worked my abs and core harder than any point in the past and it really shows.  I have 10 or so abdominal workouts I go through each day, totaling well over 1,000 crunches.

My goal is to go from 195 lbs to the most ripped abs you’ve ever seen however long that takes. I’m right at 175 lbs which is only 8 lbs over my playing weight of 167, though I had more muscle back then.  This week I’m going to double up and start doing cardio twice each day to try and lose 5 lbs and get under 170 for the first time in over 9 years. I already feel so light and quick on my feet, it’s hard to imagine what another 5-20 lbs could do. I highly recommend changing your diet and fitness activity to increase your energy levels, confidence, and all around mood. In just a few weeks, my body has begun to work at its optimum levels for the first time in years. I think that 155 lbs is where I should be, so that’s the goal. I’m hoping to be there soon.

As BP admits the operation to keep its oil spill away from the Louisiana coast could take three months, one expert tells Alex Thomson it is “a logistical nightmare”.

The race to keep the oil offshore, as BP admits it could be three months before the leak is fully sealed.

Today saw a further fall in BP’s share price mid the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. How long will it take to tame the gushing well 5,000 feet below sea level?

The company hopes to drop a dome over it before siphoning the oil flow away – but that will take a week. And to stem the leak altogether could take at least three months.

Tony Hayward, the head of BP, promised today that the company would pay for the leak, as he outlined plans to try to contain the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico . President Obama has called the leak a “massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster”.

Mr  Hayward admitted it could be three months before the flow of oil from the ruptured well is capped. For now, the company is trying to drop giant metal hoods directly over the leaking pipe.

The spill has been growing steadily since an explosion sank the Deepwater Horizon rig eleven days ago.  Scientists think it may have tripled in size and could threaten coastlines further east – towards Alabama.

Channel 4 News Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson, reporting live from the Louisiana coast, told Jon Snow the rain and wind which have swept the region for several days are now dying down.

But nobody in the area is under any illusions about the mammoth nature of the clean-up task ahead. And local fishermen are demanding action, not words.

The effects of the vast slick are being felt on a variety of species. The booms are not working in the high winds and heavy seas.

From the air, the main slick is still visible – bigger than Hampshire, nine miles out. Nobody knows how much is leaking into the sea.

BP Tony Hayward boss finally accepted today that the clean-up could cost £8bn and that the responsibility was with his company.

Kerry O’Neill, a fisherman from Venice, told Channel 4 News: “Hurricane Katrina was bad, but we were able to kind of go back to work afterwards. This here, there ain’t no telling how long we’d be shut down.”

President Obama flew in to the area yesterday, and he underlined BP’s responsibilities. But this morning in Venice, the fishermen were not easily moved. “Talk is cheap,” Kerry O’Neill told Alex Thomson.

Booms are being laid down out to sea, but many of them have already been swept to shore.

Venice lives and dies by oil and fishing. BP is saying a well funnel under construction could be placed over the leak in six to eight days, allowing safe pumping and storage of the crude. But the technology is untried at this depth.

But BP also says the well could spew its crude for up to three months – what BP calls a “worst-case scenario”.

‘Logistically a nightmare, technologically pushing the limits’
Dr Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanography Centre, told Channel 4 News that on land it was easy to put a funnel over a leaking oil well.

“But we’re dealing here with a hole that is 1,500 metres, over one mile, deep. And at those depths the pressure is phenomenal,” he said.

In addition, the work was remote and in the dark. And the oil pumping out through the sea floor “is like a fog”.

“So you’re dealing with robots, though a fog, a mile away, with phenomenal pressures (…) It’s pushing the boundaries of technology.”

Dr Boxall explained: “At these sorts of depths, low tech is the best option… At this stage what they need is a quick fix to at least stem the oil flow.”

Those involved in sealing the leak needed to wait for a “calm weather window” to complete the operation. “They’ve got to get this thing down through a mile of water. They’ve then got to use robots to position it.

“And another thing we’re not used to is dealing with mini-robots under the sea at the same time (…) If you’ve got two or three things dangling over the side of a ship, or different ships, the chance of them getting tangled up is also very high.

“So logistically it’s a nightmare, technologically it’s pushing the limits.”

Dr Boxall likened the situation in the Gulf of Mexico to a succession of stopcocks controlling the water supply to a house.

“You have a mains stopcock from the mains supply,” he told Alex Thomson, “and you’ve got lots of stopcocks along the line – under your sink, in the shower,  whatever.

“If the mains stopcock itself goes, then at the end of the day you have a problem. You can’t turn that safety valve off.

“And that’s what’s happened here. You’ve got a situation where, if you like, it’s broken right at the beginning of the line. And when that happens, there’s a limit to what you can put in in terms of safety measures.”

Alex Thomson writes from Louisiana
We are way down the Bayou. And when it comes to being way down the Bayou, Venice is about as way down it as you can get.

The thick, driving tropical rain smashed down all the way last night, as I drove from a massive concrete freeway of central New Orleans, down, down and down into the dark night of the Mississippi Delta.

By night you see nothing – and then the vast, sudden light-show of a refinery or flare stack. By day the light has gone, but the thick tropical rain remains.

With the possible exception of water, Venice Louisiana doesn’t share much with the place of gondoliers. You simply drive down Highway-23 till the swamps and waters finally close in, and the only way back by land is reverse.

This morning, sheltering from the rainy onslaught, groups of burly men, all high-vis and hard hat, stand around – and they wait. This whole town – well, “town” isn’t the right word – this whole weird collection of docks, service vessels, oil yards and fishing boats, is in suspended animation.

There are yards full of clear-up equipment, oil booms, even catering. But till the weather clears, little is happening. And for the fishermen too, of course, their ground’s now closed.

And as for the perpetrators, well, BP have admitted responsibility for the oil and for cleaning it up. Potus, visiting Venice yesterday, said so. Venice fishermen and oil men say so. And now Tony Hayward – BP boss – says so.

The BP chief executive said the oil giant was “absolutely responsible” for cleaning up the oil spill caused by a ruptured offshore well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Speaking on NBC’s Today Show, Tony Hayward also said the company was preparing for a “worst case scenario” that it would need to contain the spill for two to three months.

His comments came a day after President Barack Obama said BP was responsible for footing the bill for $4.6bn of damages caused by the massive oil slick heading towards the wetlands of the Gulf Coast.

BP is responsible for this leak. BP will be paying the bill”, Obama said, as the race to save wildlife from gallons of crude oil continues.

BP has more than 2,500 people working to clean up the slick, which the oil giant says is costing it at least £6.5m a day.

However, BP’s bill looks set to soar as new evidence suggests the slick has tripled in size over the past two days and could cost the US more than $14bn.

Satellite images analysed by the University of Miami show the growing spread of the spill – and indicate the well may now be leaking at a greater rate.

US officials have banned fishing for at least 10 days in the affected area, which provides the nation with around 20 per cent of its seafood.

Mr Hayward said: “We’ve made it clear that where legitimate claims are made, we will be good for them.”

“We have the claims process set up, small claims today that are being paid instantly … bigger claims we clearly have a process to run through,” he added.

The President vowed to spare no effort in responding to the crisis, which he said threatened one of the “richest and most beautiful eco systems on the planet”.

Meanwhile, there are fears of a worst-case scenario that would see the spillage infiltrating the Gulf Stream where it could be carried to Florida’s beaches.

“It is also the heartbeat of the region’s economic life and we’re going to do everything in our power to protect our national resources and compensate those who have been harmed, rebuild what has been damaged and help this region preserve like it has done so many times before,” he said in Louisiana yesterday.

The stricken waters in the Gulf of Mexico span the coastlines of four states, with the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana and Florida’s Pensacola Bay the worst affected, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA officials are working to keep oiled seafood off the market – which is well-known for its shrimp and oyster supply as well as being a rich source of crabs and fish.

“There should be no health risk in seafood currently in the marketplace,” Ewell Smith, executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Board said in a statement.

More than a billion pounds of fish and shellfish were harvested by fishermen in the region in 2008, according to government figures.

Eleven BP workers were killed after an explosion on April 20 that sank the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and lead to the massive oil spill.

State senators have sent the bill to Gov. Charlie Crist, outlining how red light cameras are to be used and where the money will go.

Some of the first red light cameras in the Sunshine State went live in Flagler County in May 2008. Since then, authorities have caught thousands of drivers running red lights at six intersections in Palm Coast.

If the governor signs the new law, more cameras could pop up all across Florida.

Drivers caught running a red light in Palm Coast are fined $125, with no points added to their insurance. It’s considered a code violation, like getting a parking ticket.

City leaders said they have collected about $1.5 million in fines.

From each ticket, $40 goes to American Traffic Solutions, the company that installed the cameras. So in the end, the city has only seen just over $1 million from the fines.

That money is then turned around to fund road improvements.

Under the new state bill, the fine for running a red light would jump to $158, with $75 going to the state, and the rest to local governments.

Proponents have said the cameras save lives. Red light runners are blamed for about 100 deaths a year in Florida.

However, there have been a few lawsuits filed before the bill passed the legislature, and those fighting the cameras said they are simply moneymakers.

State economists who looked at the figures said the state could see $29 million in the first year, and nearly $95 million by the end of the 2014 budget year.

Local governments, who would also get a slice of the red-light pie, could get $10 million in year one, and up to $66 million by 2014.

One thing to consider: When Palm Coast’s cameras were first turned on, the city’s safety coordinator at the time said he expected to see the violations drop over time, as people get used to the cameras.

While safety may be the No. 1 priority, revenue may come in, but it may not be a constant stream over a long stretch of time.

http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2010/4/28/red_light_cameras_await_governors_green_light.html