Thank you William, great info! Today was an overall good day for us and a bad day for BP. Obama shakes down BP for 20 Billion dollars and Tony Hayward got barbecued by congress. Will they start telling the truth? I doubt it, but good reporters are getting most of the story in spite of BP's efforts.

Hey William, HAS ANYBODY ESTABLISHED TIES BETWEEN OSAMA AND HAYWARD / BP ????

The way this guy is lying and dancing there has to be much more going. As far as I'm concerned, this is a terrorist attack on this country!

I still encourage a "GENERAL STRIKE...." Shut them all down, turn them off and have a "Blu Flu" day or two.

We are not corporate robots, we are people, those in charge ned to learn this! It would be a "Passive Resistance" movement...No one gets killed by Blackwater goons, no one wastes time or money, or inhales the toxic fumes killing the Gulf of Mexico! Think about it.

Here's a Much better solution!

Seems to me, we know where the oil is coming
up, why is it that there isn't a tent made to
surround the area where the oil is coming up,
separating it from the general ocean?

Sure, it would be a project to make a tent
the size of a large silo and a mile long, but
obviously the benefits would outweigh the
costs by a long shot.

Weight the bottom of the tent, buoy the top,
scoop (vacuum) the oil out of the top, the
recovered oil might even pay for the tent.

Should the tent be made of canvas? nylon?
Would it need some sort of internal supports
to keep it from twisting? All those are details,
but the concept of isolating the oil from
the rest of the ocean is critical.

Where is the can-do spirit of the US???

If anyone has suggestions on how to get this
concept to people that could act on it,
please let me know. I feel terrible, like
everyone else, about the continuing pollution,
and would certainly like this idea tried--

-- Amy

This pretty much illustrates the frustration of the public.

What I find almost obnoxious is those who jump on this as just one more opportunity to criticize President Obama in the usual vague and general way. They don't seem able to articulate just what it is they want him to do that he hasn't done.

Mr. Pitt,

I applaud your attitude, which seems in contradiction to all the pundits who are doing nothing but wringing their hands and exclaiming "woe is us" (as well as spouting lies about the lack of administration response - which is just as heartening as the rest of the doom and gloom.

The Louisiana Command Post has 1000 people working in shifts, 24/7 to address EnGulf. Thousands of volunteers are addressing the situation. Those who are certain we are doomed are like the French in WWII, surrendering before even engaging - might've been prudent at the time, but look at the reputation they gained in the long run.

I, too, have health issues... but that doesn't prevent me from blogging, commenting, posting, and spreading the truth wherever I can.

Despair is easy; living is hard.

Thank you sir. It is touching and refreshing to hear a call to action with direction about how to proceed. No mushy dough-boy here, thank you, thank you, thank you. We desperately need to move on so many fronts and not be mesmerized by the enormity of the evil confronting the small people. No more sleeping friends, waking, thinking, acting, loving our neighbors.

To Kay C., I, too have MS and am unable to tolerate the heat, but would urge everyone to at least advocate for justice for the people/animals, environment around the Gulf. Don't let Big Oil get away with this! I'm heartbroken over this destruction!

@anonymous at 21:44 - A good thought, but it would be really difficult. How would one hold up a tent that is a mile long? It is really a hose, not a tent, and the end on the Gulf floor has to be anchored somehow, and yet the end at the surface has to be stable despite the motion of the water - currents, winds, waves. If all the oil and gases are shooting up to the surface, and something interrupts collection, then it will all be spewing out at the surface, too - all factors that have lead BP to the decision to try it the ways that they have, instead.

I'd rather be a "small person" than a small-minded greedbag. If you think about it, the exorbitantly wealthy are the smallest segment of the global population, siphoning more and more wealth and opportunity into fewer and fewer hands. Their bank accounts, however, are huge.

It's horrifying that BP can employ mercenaries on our soil, and equally horrifying that our government will not stand up to corporate rule. To me, this says that any corporation that has the financial ability to pay for an army can do so , unfettered by law or national boundaries. Scary stuff, but likely only the beginning.

IF Blackwater is supplying armed security, are they not usurping the rights of Americans? Sure, BP can hire private people to secure land they OWN, but they are operating on public or private land, and it DOESN'T belong to BP.

You have to believe the fix is in at a pretty high level if we are not sending OUR police to clear the mercenaries out, and if there are applicable laws, to prosecute them. Are they all licensed to carry guns in those states?

It scares the hell out of me that Blackwater patrols New Orleans and now along the coast. Who are they responsible to, and are we REALLY allowing a foreign country to send armed troops onto USA shores? Where are the law and order people NOW?

America, You are lost. The chickens continue to come home to roost. You foolishly believe the DemoRats are any better than the Rethuglicans and have forgotten your own wisdom: foxes in the South, hounds in the North.

R.I.P.

In response to "A good thought" discussing
the mile long tent idea:

One would hold up the tent with buoys on the
top, weights on the bottom. Any number
of added subtleties would be possible, such
as having an additional cuff extend above
the water. If the tenting material were nylon
it wouldn't be as heavy, but I don't know
if this is really a consideration.

The point is, use a low tech, flexible, barrier at the site of the oil leak, containing the oil within
the barrier, rather than trying to capture the
oil after it has left the source and the area.

If you want to think of it as a hose, that is fine,
but the top might be the size of several city
blocks. This gets around the problem BP
had with the narrow pipe coming out of the housing they constructed and placed over the leak, which quickly clogged with frozen methane.

With the tent plan, the frozen
methane and all the rest of the noxious materials
would just float to the top of the barrier, unimpeded by a narrow pipe -- where they
can be scooped up before escaping into the
general gulf.

Mr. Svanberg is a liar. Time and again we have seen BP laugh loud and long at the increasingly feeble attempts by the federal government to enforce even the toothless regulations that now exist. Time and again we have seen them cut costs on safety measures in callous indifference to human life, and that of the planet.

Good ideas sent to BP are probably not going to get the attention they deserve, as business-as-usual seems to be more of their style than jumping on a thing with urgency and creative innovation. But I could be wrong and appreciate "SpinMeDaddy" 15:08 for submitting the idea all the same, and it needed to be done.

I'm thinking NASA has the qualifications and, at least historically, the capacity to evaluate (and do) this. I just submitted it at the NASA Washington DC contact us form, along with a plea for NASA attention to this, while alluding to the handling of the Apollo 13 problems, when NASA people working together fixed the impossible in impossibly little time with impossibly little resources. More submissions to NASA of similar requests, and calling upon other government people and offices to get NASA on it might be a help.

I'd really like to see the management of the repair effort taken out of BP hands and placed into the hands of real go-getters. There is no reason NASA or anyone else couldn't hire people from BP etc. who actually have some skills and knowledge and concern for solutions. It's a national disaster, and what's needed there should be what it gets.

One does not need to travel to the site of the oil spill to raise a ruckus. The culture of deceit embraced by our governments on all levels, and our willingness to allow them a status above the law is the root of this and a plethora of other problems in this country. True heroes are reviled across this country because they step up and stand in the way of "progress", which the new buzzword for a resocialization of our system. Come on sheeple...step out wherever you are. This crisis is a symptom and illustrates the magnitude of the problem. Time to raise a ruckus wherever you are!

On the bucket brigade, I've been mulling this idea over for a couple of years now, but not because of the Gulf.

I've been worried about our creeks and streams, which suffer from another, much longer deluge of pollutants with increasing significant health hazards.

My thoughts have been about getting volunteers who live near these creeks, streams, ponds, lakes, etc., would be pulling water samples and soil samples on a weekly basis. If there is a business pumping effluents into the environment, we could track it directly downstream, and prove the source of polluting by having samples from upstream.

As we move into shale cracking with Benzene and other cancer causing lubricants and take the natural gas away, the pollutants will take the place of the gas, ultimately filtering down through the aquafier to reach the lowest point, which happens to be where water will be, too.

Fixing the Gulf is obviously necessary and my heart goes out to one of my favorite regions of the country, but we all suffer from 30, 40, 50+ years of poisoned water supplies, and as long as somebody might be reading this right now, this problem is going to take decades to accomplish.

The problem with having all of these calamities popping up in a relatively short time just means we have not been paying attention to the things we should.

Roger W. Norman

Why not offer illegal aliens citizenship for a year of volunteer clean-up, learning english, and no criminal activity?

Back to William's call to action! There are things that each of us can do starting now, even if we are unable to go to the Gulf to help the Bucket Brigade. One set of actions involves talking with friends and neighbors, building community locally, creating a culture of openness and civility and cooperation. Another set of actions parallels the first, and it is to begin to personally break our addiction to oil and other fossil-fuel-based energy sources. We each need to do this consciously and to spread the word about what we are doing, inviting others to do what they can do.

Good idea. But more important would be to request explanations as to why BP, the U.S. government and other outfits have apparently gone to great lengths to project as much incompetence as they could get away with.

One discerning mind can not help but make a connection to the amazing success of the 9/11 terror attacks, made possible only by dozens--if not hundreds--of U.S. officials asleep at the wheel--complete with a high-ranking FBI manager who blocked investigations into suspicious Arabs taking flying lessons.

9/11 justified endless and exhausting wars, plus a dismantling of individual rights. Yet Bush and his minions did not see fit to fire--or even reprimand--any U.S. employee for criminal negligence. Neither did anybody in Congress.

It is easy to believe that the numerous clueless, useless or outright psychopathic U.S. employees took the cue from 9/11 that their methods of work were welcome. Could we be witnessing the result in the Gulf? Shall we wait for more disasters that will make them rejoice behind some Cleckley mask?

Love,

Perhaps, BP shouldn't be in charge.
They are after all a corporation, charged with maintaining the bottom line. It is the bottom line that is their target, cleaning up the gulf, protecting the gulf from further damage come second. If there was a way to stop the oil and destroy the well, they would think twice before implementation.

Put the picket lines around the Board of Directors; those people get huge stipends for being on the BP Board. If they don't like it they can make a huge public showing of turning over their stipends to the recovery effort.