I am so pleased we are giving serious thought to adding the visual layer. I think that the extra addition of color and imagery will really round out the meaning and expression of our music. Music is still the core of what it’s about, but so few music acts go there, and for those who do it usually works out pretty effectively. Plus it’s fun to edit all the clips together.
It’s amazing, all the things in the universe that all go wrong, all go wrong at the same time… think about it… if you don’t get it, doesn’t matter to you anyway.
- from a ap article -
Researchers studying the flow of oil from the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico said Thursday that up to twice the amount of oil previously thought may have been spewing into the sea since an oil rig exploded nearly two months ago.
The new figures could mean anywhere from 42 million to more than 100 million gallons of oil have already fouled the fragile waters, affecting people who live, work and play along the coast from Louisiana to Florida — and perhaps beyond.
It is the third — and perhaps not last — time the federal government has had to increase its estimate of how much oil is gushing. Trying to clarify what has been a contentious and confusing issue, federal officials on Thursday gave a wide variety of estimates.
All of the new spill rate estimates are worse than earlier ones — and far more costly for BP, which has seen its stock sink since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill.
Most of Thursday’s estimates had more oil flowing in an hour than what officials once said was spilling in an entire day.
The spill — before June 3 when a riser was cut and then a cap put on it — was flowing at daily rate that could possibly have been as high as 2.1 million gallons, twice the highest number the federal government had been saying, according to U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt, who is coordinating estimates. But she said possibly more credible numbers are a bit lower.
The estimates are not near complete yet and different scientific teams have come up with different numbers. A new team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute came in with higher estimates than all the others using multibeam sonar.
The Woods Hole estimate ranged from 1 million gallons a day to 2.1 million gallons. And if the high end of the Woods Hole estimate is true, that means nearly 107 million gallons have spilled since the rig explosion.
Even using other numbers that federal officials and scientists call a more reasonable range would have about 63 million gallons spilling since April 20.
If those 63 million gallons of oil were put in gallon milk jugs, they would line up side by side for nearly 5,500 miles. That’s the distance from the spill to London, where BP is headquartered, and then continuing on to Rome.
By comparison, Exxon Valdez, the previous worst U.S. oil spill, was just about 11 million gallons. The worst peacetime oil spill, 1979′s Ixtoc 1 in Mexico, was about 140 million gallons over 10 months. The new figures mean Deepwater Horizon is producing an Exxon Valdez size spill every five to 13 days.
With all sorts of estimates for what’s flowing from the BP well, some even smaller than the amount collected by BP in its containment cap, McNutt in a telephone press conference said the most credible range at the moment is between 840,000 gallons and 1.68 million gallons a day. Then she added that it was “maybe a little bit more.”
No estimates were given for the amount of oil gushing from the well after the June 3 riser cut, which BP said would increase the flow by about 20 percent. Nor are there estimates since a cap was put on the pipe, which already has collected more than 3 million gallons.
After the news conference, the Department of Interior said in a press release that the scientists who based their calculations on video say the best estimate for oil flow before the riser was cut was between 1.05 million gallons a day and 1.26 million gallons a day. That release mentioned only a cubic meter per second rate from Woods Hole, not a rate that translated into actual amounts.
The previous estimates had put the range roughly between half a million and a million gallons a day, perhaps higher. At one point, the federal government claimed only 42,000 gallons were spilling a day and then it upped the number to 210,000 gallons.
Confused?
One member of the teams analyzing the flow, University of Washington at Seattle assistant professor of mechanical engineering Alberto Aliseda, said he understands why the public may be perplexed with all the different numbers and the diverging methodologies.
“From my point of view, this is a very difficult problem scientifically,” Aliseda said. “In the long run, it is beneficial to use all of these approaches. But in the short term, it definitely produces a variety of numbers. It is difficult to use them, and it is difficult to convey them to the public in a coherent manner.”
McNutt said, “Our scientific analysis is still a work in progress.”
When the dust and oil clears, BP could be looking at total costs and liabilities in the billions, perhaps tens of billions of dollars, according to analysts and observers. BP doesn’t have an unlimited checkbook, but as a cash rich oil company, it does have lots of resources to handle the burden. Analysts estimate BP could be able to raise $15 billion and still keep debt levels within company expectations.
As of Thursday, the cost of the response to date amounted to roughly $1.43 billion, according to a BP regulatory filing.
But that figure is likely to be a drop in the bucket compared to what BP ultimately has to shell out to make everyone whole.
“This is a nightmare that keeps getting worse every week,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “We’re finding out more and more information about the extent of the damage. … Clearly we can’t trust BP’s estimates of how much oil is coming out.”
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Associated Press Writer Tamara Lush contributed to this report from New Orleans. Weber reported from Houston, Borenstein from Washington.
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All things in life are the nightmare for a reason, and then hopefully we wake up.
This doesn’t happen everyday, and it was accidental, and it won’t happen again.
Tyler Durden: Where’d you go, psycho boy?
Narrator: I felt like destroying something beautiful.
But…there was something cathartic is watching something beautiful and innocent getting stomped in. It was sad, but freeing. The guitar didn’t ask for this, but neither did I. It was perched near the wall at a moment of bad timing, and that’s how things get smashed… and misspelled for that matter. Smashed and misspelled. What a great combination. God, I felt bad for the exotic wood finder and the designer of that guitar, but I wished that that mistake represented all of the mistakes of recently, but because that there was obvious destruction to a thing of true beauty via accident, how much more cathartic.
Looking at youtube this morning reminiscing about Sam and I’s trip to Michigan for Rothbury festival 2009 I found negative comments about the way Dylan plays these days, and it bothers me. Some people were disappointed that he didn’t play many of his hits, and when he did he sang them differently, and what the hell does he think he’s doing putting his dirty little fingers into MY favorite Dylan songs?! Well, I actually felt the same disappointment at the time BUT as a contributer and long-time studyer of the world of original, progressive bohemian rock art music, I understand Bob Dylan has what all musicians want – freedom to play whatever he feels at the given moment, even when it’s for 50,000 people, and f*** ‘em. And if you were a musician, or true Dylan follower you would understand and appreciate that. So there
What is the definition of drummer, as it relates to Smitty? Brian and I have played with several, and been more or less serious about each one at whatever given time. It is not to simply keep time. It is to be as an octopus, a parasititic entity one third the size of its host, who influences for better or for worse one third of the energetic output. It is my job to generate; it is Brian’s job to colorize; and it is our Drummer’s job to enlarge.
When it is time to give credit when credit is due… or is it that it is never fully achieved. No matter how hard we push… we must push on more, and more. When is any thing done or finished… that is a state of being temporarily through until more changes await to still transpire. Nothing is ever truly done or finished, it just becomes mildly presentable.
bliebman.param.mobi/index.php
its a start, i will laugh when i finally settle on something nicer, than i realize how primitive this looks, but its a start
While you probably think of Smitty as the most illuminated with wild colors while at the same time trembling your corrosively withered skeleton to its very marrow musical experience, Smitty admits that it has been influenced by many things, musical and otherwise. This site is for fans – nay – super fans who, preternatually want insight into the vast and private mental habits of their favorite band. So open your minds real wide as you read on. We are the seers of visions, we are the dreamers of dreams. Our minds are the digesters, organizers and vomitoriums of the greatest work seen on this small planet. We are the press men. Acknowledge us.
