Before and After images of Pakistan flooding (via NASA Earth Observatory and The Map Room)
Please donate what you can. I prefer the World Food Programme because they do get the job done. Please please help. It’s to get a lot worse.
The LMRP tophat is in place. Closing the vents in the cap is slow going with the formation of hydrates and high flow pressure out of the well. Indeed, we are still watching and discussing.
The Oil Drum | Lessons Left Unlearnt From 2003 Gulf of Mexico Near-Spill: “Reading through some MMS reports, it seems that near-misses happen a lot.”
A good maritime law blog on the legal machinations surrounding the oil spill. As Brad says, “He begins each day with a summary of the relevant legal developments pertaining to the spill, then expands on them individually and includes hyperlinks to underlying documents.”
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So, this has been puzzling me for the last couple of days: Both IfItWasMyHome and Paul Rademacher offer the ability to overlay the latest geographic extent of the oil spill on a location of your choice. It’s a good exercise in geographic scale, but if they both source their data from NOAA on any given day, why do the maps look so different?
IfItWasMyHome.com June 4, 2010
Paul Rademacher Oil Spill June 3, 2010
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Are the American people and media so naive that they cannot discern between disaster and disastrous response? How many times must these things happen before they get it? America, keep this in mind as you go into another weekend (and Pistolette sums it up very nicely): “I didn’t blame Bush for Katrina, but for failing to act after. I don’t blame Obama for the oil spill, but for failing to act after.” Disaster prevention is one thing, while effective response is wholly another.
Slashdot | High-Tech Burglars May Get Longer Sentences In Louisiana
Burglars and terrorists should be careful not to use Google Maps if they plan on committing crimes in the state of Louisiana … a bill approved 89-0 by the Louisiana House will require that judges impose an additional minimum sentence of at least 10 years on terrorist acts if the crime is committed with the aid of an Internet-generated ‘virtual map.’ The bill, already approved by the Louisiana Senate, defines a ‘virtual street-level map’ as one that is available on the Internet and can generate the location or picture of a home or building by entering the address of the structure or an individual’s name on a website. If the map is used in the commission of a crime like burglary, the bill calls for the addition of at least one year in jail (PDF) to be added to the burglary sentence.
Because you have to case a joint the old-fashioned way, dammit, sitting outside in a sketchy van with binoculars! Not using this cold, heartless, new-fangled Internet!
I … hmmm … uhhhh … I don’t know where to start with this one. Nothing else of import on the legislative agenda? Conducting a terrorist act isn’t bad enough, you get 10 years, y’heard, 10 WHOLE YEARS EXTRA for using the series of tubes for reconnaissance. That the Louisiana legislature should encourage the use of Google Maps for such activity because it will most likely send the would-be criminal to the wrong location? The bill was approved 89-0 in the LA House after passing the Senate; are all of the state’s elected representatives tech-illiterate geezers?
For the love of justice, David Vitter is giving away the keys to the castle and you’re worried about common criminals and imagined terrorists using digital cartography?
I suggest an amendment to the bill that jails people for geolocating their home addresses for others and then blasting to the world when they’re away from home. If you’re that stupid, you need to be put away for your own good.
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While its idiot politicians waste taxpayer money, the rest of Louisiana fights the good fight in the throes of deep, horrifying, sickening despair. From Charlie Mac and His Junk Shots, a remake of the musical classic Jambalaya (On The Bayou):
Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me o my o
Oil slick come and it’s as big as Ohio.
BP says they gonna clean the mess but they lie-o
Son of a gun, oil by the ton on the bayou.
St. Bernard gonna take it hard, and that’s a shame-o
Plaquemines just can’t win, and who’s to blame-o?
Big oil slick make the little fish sick, kill the game-o
Son of a gun, they got us on the run on the bayou.
The containment dome failed, Top Kill is looking like a no-go, the flow by now is higher than 5000 barrels per day and Joe Lieberman says, “Accidents happen.”
There’s a difference, senator, between Accidents Happen and The Accident Is Still Happening 21 Days After And Nothing Can Stop It.
BP is now attempting a smaller Macondome, giving me the impression it’s time someone else took over this operation. The Department of Interior under both Bush and Obama is a hot, zero-oversight mess (even the Government Accountability Office is scared). Meanwhile, southeastern Louisiana is done for.
NOAA’s spill location forecast for 6pm CDT today:
Paul Rademacher has created a Google Earth mashup in which you can overlay the extent of the Gulf of Mexico oil spread as of May 6th on any place on the globe. How big is the slick compared to where you live? Remember that the gusher will only keep widening in extent as long as the oil continues to spew out of the leaks in the riser.
The oil spill on New York City (and New Jersey and New York state and Connecticut):
The oil spill on Chicago (and Gary, IN and Lake Michigan into Michigan):
On Houston (D notes that the eastern arm spill stops just short of the Louisiana border):
Here comes the Loop Current.
Marion Laney, a realtor on Dauphin Island, has uploaded the following video from the Ocean Circulation Group at University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science. It uses drifters tracked by satellite to follow and forecast the movement of the Gulf Gusher (note that this is based on one model, like in hurricane tracking). The modeled circulation resembles a starfish with two arms stretching south and eastward over time. If you think Louisiana’s problems are only in the Breton/Chandeleur area, though, check out that one arm circling the peninsula to the west and headed up towards Barataria Bay. Bad news.
Help Oiled Birds
Please help some innocent living things by supporting the efforts of The International Bird Rescue Center in locating, rescuing, and cleaning wildlife affected by the ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Click on the pelican to donate.
