Asshat of the day award goes to Terry Savage, a columnist for the Chicago Sun Times, who yelled at some little girls who were giving away free beverages at their lemonade stand, ostensibly offending Savage’s perception of how to run a proper lemonade business.

“No!” I exclaimed from the back seat. “That’s not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They’re giving away their parents’ things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It’s not theirs to give.”

I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight.

“You must charge something for the lemonade,” I explained. “That’s the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs — how much the lemonade costs, and the cups — and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money.”

You can’t blame Savage…she is just a cog in the wheel of a larger market.  BP was just trying to make more lemonade in the Gulf after all, right?

Free lemonade stands aren’t what’s wrong with America, it’s asshats like Terry Savage who yell at little girls from the air conditioned comfort of her BP-Oil chugging SUV.

There is no ‘free’ lemonade :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Terry Savage.

Where Is the Spill Site?

Here is the spill site using Google maps (click any image to see a bigger, clearer version of the image):

This NOAA image gives a basic overview of the oil spill site in relation to the surrounding area:

The oil spill is occurring within the “Macondo prospect”, which is located in Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is an image showing the Mississippi Canyon compared to other areas in the Gulf of Mexico:

This shows the relation of Block 252 to nearby sites:

Here is Block 252 shown in comparison with nearby sites:

And this is the definitive high-resolution map showing block 252 in comparison with other prospects in the Mississippi Canyon area and surrounding areas.

But in order to really get a feel for what’s happening underwater, we should look at detailed topographic maps. Indeed, knowing the topography and the geology at the spill site is crucial in understanding the risks involved and being able to determine the best approach for stopping the leak.

Topography of the Spill Site

Here’s a map of the Gulf of Mexico:

Here’s another map courtesy of Wired (the spill site is between the two sets of red hash marks):

Here’s an image of the Gulf of Mexico, showing the Sigsbee and Florida Escarpments (Block 252 is approximately half way in between the 2 escarpments):

Here is a satellite image of the area provided by the Minerals Management Service and NOAA’s Multipurpose Marine Cadastre:

Here is a close-up Here is a close-up (I placed a hand icon at the approximate location of the oil spill based on latitude and longitude):

Here is an image – courtesy of NOAA’s GeoPlatform service – showing the topography surrounding the leaking wellhead:

Here is a close up of the same image:

Here is the same image with the spill location indicator removed, so that you can see the slope of the area at the spill site:

(Note: the GeoPlatform service is also very useful for forecasting the near-term trajectory of the oil spill).

Here is a map giving a different view of the steep canyon in which the oil spill site is located:

Some oil industry professionals are worried that a landslide at the spill site could make the oil spill much worse by carrying away the blowout preventer, riser and all other equipment. While I have no idea how likely it is that a landslide could occur before the well is capped, it is true that:

1. The spill site is located in a steep canyon;
2. There are hundreds of feet of loose mud and muck on top of the sea floor in this area; and
3. Many deepwater, oi-rich areas within the Gulf are tectonically active.

Source:  http://www.zerohedge.com/article/where-oil-spill

Sea Water passes through: Oil Doesn’t

A group at the University of Pittsburgh has developed a chemical that can be used to readily convert textiles (either natural or man-made) into an inexpensive and efficient water-oil separator.

This video shows how a piece of chemically treated cotton cloth is able to separate oil from Gulf of Mexico sea water.  The treated cloth allows water to path through but not oil.  Quick…someone get Costner on the phone.

You might recall last week I posted about Kevin Costner’s company, Ocean Therapy Solutions.   Well, Costner has now apparently sold 32 of his oil spill cleaning machines to BP.  The 32 machines are expected to process 6 million gallons of water each day and will extract clean water from the oil with a 99.9% success rate.

Costner testified before the House Energy and Environment subcommittee on Wednesday. Costner said “that as long as the oil industry profits from the sea, they have an obligation to protect it.”  He went on to say that the cleaning devices “should be on every ship transporting oil, they should be on every derrick, they should be in every harbor.”

Not a bad idea, Kev.

Kevin Costner sells 32 oil spill machines to BP to recycle 6 million gallons of water a day photos.

How deep is the Deepwater Horizon rig? Karl Tate from OurAmazingPlanet.com put together this handy chart that shows the relative depth of the Deepwater Horizon compared to other recognizable features of the planet…manmade and otherwise (click on the image below to see the whole chart):

“They’re everywhere”

via Pensacola oil spill: blobs of oil tar are washing ashore in Florida – OrlandoSentinel.com.

Below are 20 messages.  Some are ACTUAL responses from BP Executives and some are from the FAKE BP Global PR Twitter account.  Can you tell which is which>

1. “We regretfully admit that something has happened off the Gulf Coast. More to come.”

“We are not at liberty to fly media, journalists, photographers, or scientists,” the company said in a letter it sent on Tuesday to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). “We strongly feel that the reason for this massive [temporary flight restriction] is that BP wants to control their exposure to the press.”

Photographers Say BP Restricts Access to Oil Spill – Newsweek.

BP had ultimate authority over drilling decisions, the Deepwater Horizon’s chief mechanic, Doug Brown said in sworn testimony Wednesday.

The BP company man at a meeting stood up and said, “This is how it’s going to be.”

The BP official, a “company man” in industry parlance, would have been the top decision-maker on the rig, although his role may have been complicated by having a number of higher-ranking BP officials on hand to celebrate the Deepwater Horizon’s safety record.

A BP employee named Donald Vidrine, who’s been identified as one of the company men, was on the original witness list for the multi-day hearings, but is no longer scheduled to testify due to an undisclosed medical condition.

The other BP employee on the witness list is Robert Kaluza, who did appear but pleaded the Fifth.

BP refused to identify what role Kaluza and Vidrine had on the Deepwater Horizon.

Michael Williams, a Transocean employee who was chief electronics technician on the rig, said there was “confusion” between those high-ranking officials in an 11 a.m. meeting on the day of the rig blast, according to a sworn statement.

According to Mr. Williams’s account, Transocean’s rig manager, Jimmy Wayne Harrell, was discussing the plans for the next few hours’ work, including taking out the drilling mud and running a test to make sure gas wasn’t seeping into the well. Mr. Harrell explained in the meeting that he had received the plans from BP.

Then, according to Mr. Williams’s statement, the top-ranked BP employee assigned to the rig, Donald Vidrine, disagreed and said “that was not the correct procedure.”

When I read this article about BP defending its response to the Gulf Oil spill, for some reason my mind went to the scene in “A Few Good Men” when Colonel Jessep (played by Jack Nicholson), gives his famous “You can’t handle the truth” speech:

BP, for all of their pompous arrogance, is just like Colonel Jessep.  Replace a few words in that speech with words like Oil, and it might as well be BP’s position right now.

There are over 5,000 offshore oil rigs.  Forget the “accidents”…what happens when Terrorists, or North Korea or…worse… starts torpedoing them?

Think Progress » BP Runs Full-Page Ads In Major Newspapers Defending Its Oil Spill Response: ‘We Have Taken Full Responsibility’.

In the meantime, the company plans this “Top Kill”. Who better to explain it, than Bill Nye the Science Guy?