Hurricane Irene moves thru Washington DC….

From The Washington Post…. The leading edge of Hurricane Irene moved into the Washington region Saturday morning, several hours after the storm made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina just after dawn. Beginning with gusting winds and light showers, the brunt of the storm was expected to pass through the area overnight and into Sunday morning. It reached land as a Category 1 hurricane, downgraded a notch from the greater force it gathered over the open Atlantic. The National Hurricane Center reported at 2 p.m. that Irene’s maximum sustained winds were 85 mph. It is expected to grind north over the coastal states on a course that will take it through Maine and eastern Canada before the arctic chill forces its warm moisture to make a right turn into the Atlantic. After days of warning, it took no one by surprise. From North Carolina through Nova Scotia, people had raided markets and liquor stores for provisions, hammered plywood into place, stockpiled ice, flashlights and candles in case power is lost, and tied down everything that might blow away in tropical-force winds. By Saturday morning, Ocean City officials said the unprecedented evacuation of more than 200,000 residents and visitors from the barrier island had been completed with near total compliance. More than 2,000 of the area’s foreign student workers had been bused to Baltimore. The last holdout — a 7-Eleven near 120th Street — closed its temporary plywood doors at 11:30 a.m. Saturday. Light traffic continued to flow across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge early Saturday afternoon, but wind speeds were approaching 30 mph, the point when authorities said they would ban house trailers, motorcycles and other vehicles affected by strong winds. They said the bridge will be closed to all traffic if sustained winds reach 60 mph. In Virginia, nearly 200,000 people were subject to forced evacuations, and 65,000 residents have lost power, with Hampton, Norfolk and Virginia Beach bearing most of the hurricane’s impact….. More….

From Politicaldog101.Com….

Japan Update…..3/15/11

From BBC….

Radiation levels have fallen at Japan’s earthquake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the government says.

The levels had spiked to harmful levels after a fire and a third explosion at the site.

Weather reports say winds are blowing radiation from the plant, on Japan’s north-east coast, over the Pacific.ce.

Friday afternoon’s earthquake was the strongest in Japan since records began to be kept. It hit the north-east of the main island of Honshu and triggered a powerful tsunami that devastated dozens of coastal communities.Further strong aftershocks – one of 6.1-magnitude centred south-west of Tokyo – continue to rock the country.

The latest official death toll from the quake and tsunami stands at more than 3,000 – but thousands of people are missing and it is feared at least 10,000 may have been killed.

More than 500,000 people have been made homeless.

The government has deployed 100,000 troops to lead the aid….

More…..

This from Politicaldog101…

 

The President wants to make a deal…..

While the Democrats in the Senate and House are complaining about taxcuts for the rich…

The President isn’t really set against them…

He wants a START Treaty, a jobs bill extention, and financial aid for students…..

He’ll make a deal….

 

Obama Open to Deal on Tax Cuts

After the U.S. Senate defeated two attempts by Democrats to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class permanently, President Obama told Democratic leaders “he would be open to a temporary extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the affluent, but he would demand concessions from the GOP,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

The concessions he’s seeking: “a year-long extension of unemployment insurance and tax cuts for middle-income and working poor Americans that were in the stimulus law but also expire at the end of this year. Those include the Making Work Pay tax cut of $400 for middle-income individuals and $800 for couples, a tuition tax credit, an expanded earned income and child credit for the working poor, and a payroll tax credit for new hires.”

Politico: “The doomed votes mean Democrats ultimately may need to agree to a deal that runs contrary to their campaign promises over the past 10 years. Rather than eliminating the upper-end tax cuts, Democrats will likely cede to Republican demands to renew all of the Bush tax cuts for several years — a move that many in the party view as a major defeat.”

 

Obama will try to 'Jawbone' BP into setting aside $$$….

Am I surprised?

Nope…..

The President is gonna try to put more pressure on BP to set aside money in an address to the nation ……

This is 20% operational…….80% politcal….

While the Dog agree’s a ‘set-aside’ would be a good idea…..

The fact is Obama’s moves are principally to assuage the media……

Because Obama is slow to anger….

And generally seeks to deal with issues rationally ….

He is under attack from the media….

The media and others are seeking revenge for the accident….

BP like the president has hunkered down and gone about its business…

That simply isn’t good enough, egh?

I watched  the MSNBC special of the Oil Spill today…

What struck me was the laid back way everything was…

The response was principally to save large amounts of bird wildlife….

But the think was not hurried just resigned….

No dramatic music…

Just people out there doing their jobs…..

The media needs to show more of this

And stop beating up the President and BP…

We need to see more of what can be done to deal with the problem….

The political ‘dog and pony’ show will surly come later……

As will the fines…….

Obama will try to ‘Jawbone’ BP into setting aside $$$….

Am I surprised?

Nope…..

The President is gonna try to put more pressure on BP to set aside money in an address to the nation ……

This is 20% operational…….80% politcal….

While the Dog agree’s a ‘set-aside’ would be a good idea…..

The fact is Obama’s moves are principally to assuage the media……

Because Obama is slow to anger….

And generally seeks to deal with issues rationally ….

He is under attack from the media….

The media and others are seeking revenge for the accident….

BP like the president has hunkered down and gone about its business…

That simply isn’t good enough, egh?

I watched  the MSNBC special of the Oil Spill today…

What struck me was the laid back way everything was…

The response was principally to save large amounts of bird wildlife….

But the think was not hurried just resigned….

No dramatic music…

Just people out there doing their jobs…..

The media needs to show more of this

And stop beating up the President and BP…

We need to see more of what can be done to deal with the problem….

The political ‘dog and pony’ show will surly come later……

As will the fines…….

Defense Secretary Gates on Oil Spill….The US Military can't handle it……

The U.S. military has no expertise that could solve the oil spill from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on June 4.

“I know there’s been some commentary about this. The truth of the matter is we don’t have any expertise in this area,” Gates told reporters during a visit to Singapore.

As BP has struggled to stop oil from gushing out of its ruptured well, some lawmakers and commentators have called for the American military to take over the effort.

Gates said the military had no magic bullet to address the worst oil spill in U.S. history, though it had provided some equipment and other assistance.

He said that “we’ll do whatever we can to help but this is not our area of specialty.”

More……..

The Dog told ya that…….

Nuff Said……

Defense Secretary Gates on Oil Spill….The US Military can’t handle it……

The U.S. military has no expertise that could solve the oil spill from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on June 4.

“I know there’s been some commentary about this. The truth of the matter is we don’t have any expertise in this area,” Gates told reporters during a visit to Singapore.

As BP has struggled to stop oil from gushing out of its ruptured well, some lawmakers and commentators have called for the American military to take over the effort.

Gates said the military had no magic bullet to address the worst oil spill in U.S. history, though it had provided some equipment and other assistance.

He said that “we’ll do whatever we can to help but this is not our area of specialty.”

More……..

The Dog told ya that…….

Nuff Said……

The Cap IS working on the Oil pipe in the Gulf…….

Slowly they WILL get this thing done……

I commend the President for now jumping on the media ‘hype’ express…..

And Thad Allen for do a damn good job under intense pressure….

They need to keep him …….

[ CG Admiral Thad Allen ]

“The vents remain open,” Adm. Thad Allen of the Coast Guard, who is in charge of the federal response to the oil spill, said in a briefing Saturday morning.

Admiral Allen said that while engineers had so far been able to bring 6,000 barrels of oil to the surface, they had been hesitant to close the vents. If they do so, they fear, water will rush in and form the kind of icy hydrates that doomed a previous attempt to cap the leak.

“When we put the cap down, there were four vents on the cap that allow oil to escape that’s not going up through the pipe,” he said. “What you want is you want to keep oil in the containment cap and not let water in, because when water gets in you form hydrates.”

The admiral had initially said that engineers hoped to begin closing the vents on Friday. But on Saturday he said they had not because of fears that the pressure inside the cap would become so great that oil would blast through the imperfect seal.

With the oil staining beaches and killing wildlife across the gulf, and tar balls beginning to surface on the shores of the Florida Panhandle, President Obama said in his weekly Saturday radio address, “We are prepared for the worst, even as we hope thatBP’s efforts bring better news than we’ve received before.”

BP and government officials have said it will take at least until Sunday to fully deploy the containment device and make a definitive assessment of the amount of oil it can collect. BP executives have said that as much as 90 percent of the escaping oil may be contained by the cap if all goes well. A ship on the surface is capable of collecting 15,000 barrels a day, Admiral Allen said.

The cap is a temporary measure. The well cannot be cemented shut until two relief wells are drilled, by August at the earliest.

Technicians, employing submarine robots, worked through the night to begin closing the vents. So far the cap has been able to bear the pressure and there is no sign of hydrates forming. That is viewed by experts as a positive sign because hydrates clogged a similar containment device a month ago and prevented it from capturing the oil effectively.

[ A drawing of the cap ]

More……..

BP reports capturing Oil from the well…..The Cap is working…….

[ AFP/BP – This still image from a live BP video shows a cap being lowered in the hopes of sealing the fractured ]

BP has finally had some luck in fixing the cap onto the pipe spewing oil in the Gulf……

Hopefully they can capture enough oil to render this spill over…..

Something about closeing the evnts to the cap without it being blown off……

Mean while oil droplets have reached the coast of Florida….and the President is back in the region just in time to get the good news…..

On day 46 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP, at last, began to siphon oil from the ruptured undersea well to the surface, where it was flowing onto the awaiting drill ship Discover Enterprise.

As the recovery process started Friday, BP said it would shut four vents on top of a containment cap from which oil was still escaping into the ocean. The company hoped that closing the vents would greatly reduce the amount of gushing crude, though there was still enormous uncertainty about the ultimate success of BP’s latest effort to contain and recover the oil.

U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s response manager, said estimates of how much oil is being captured or whether any leaks develop will be determined later Friday.

President Obama, who said he was “furious at this entire situation,” arrived in Louisiana on Friday afternoon to get another firsthand look at the environmental damage and speak with political and business leaders.

Obama did not provide details about attempts to seal the well, but said “it does appear that the cap — at least for now — is holding.” He quickly added, however, that it is “way too early to be optimistic.” Officials should know more about the success or failure of the effort in next 24 to 48 hours, he said…….

Link……..

BP cuts the Pipe……Temporary Cap to be placed shortly…..

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen* has announced that BP has successfully cut the pipe extending from the well oil pipe…

They expect to place a temporary cap over the spewing oil pipe shortly……

This should enable them to catch and start to collect the oil from the well, again…as they did before the break….

If they are successful BP will have stopped the leak almost completely…..(Until August when a relief well is in place and this pipe is sealed)

And…

Begin to make revenue again….

After days of reporting failures, BP made progress in containing a ruptured oil well Thursday when it was able to sever a damaged riser pipe.

The success, however, was tempered by the grim reality that oil could continue gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at least until August, when BP hopes to have a relief well in place.

An effort to slice off the pipe with a precision diamond-tipped cutter failed Wednesday, forcing BP to settle for a rougher cut of the pipe using shears. The more primitive cut means that a rubber seal will not be as tight as previously hoped, said U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s response manager.

Allen said BP will now attempt to lower a containment dome over the ruptured well, after which it will begin siphoning oil a mile up to the surface.

BP has said the cap would be a temporary solution until a more permanent relief well can be drilled in the ocean’s depths.

The latest containment effort comes on day 45 of the disaster, as oil drifted eastward toward Florida and President Obama announced he will return to Louisiana on Friday to assess the latest efforts to counter the spill.

…………………………………….

BP has begun a public relations Campaign…….

Meanwhile, BP, under fire from seemingly every angle, launched a national ad campaign to improve its tarnished reputation.

The beleaguered oil giant released television spots featuring Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, who apologizes and promises to “make this right.”

Even as the ads began to air, a grass-roots campaign dubbed Seize BP planned to kick off a week of demonstrations in more than 50 cities.

More….

* I guess they didn’t let Allen retire two weeks ago like he was supposed to……

Note…..As I have said here before…..No Governmenet take over…Just let BP do it’s thing……Why put the government holding the bag?