Oil spill apocalypse?

They are opening the scallop season 2 weeks early on the west coast of florida because of the oil threat .

BTW, just what is this stupid law that prohibits non-US-flagged ships (?) from assisting in the cleanup? Supposedly Saudi Arabia and The Netherlands among others have asked to help but are prohibited.

WTF?

shadetree30 wrote: BTW, just what is this stupid law that prohibits non-US-flagged ships (?) from assisting in the cleanup? Supposedly Saudi Arabia and The Netherlands among others have asked to help but are prohibited. WTF?

Found it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920

It is now raining oil in Louisiana

shadetree30 wrote:

shadetree30 wrote: BTW, just what is this stupid law that prohibits non-US-flagged ships (?) from assisting in the cleanup? Supposedly Saudi Arabia and The Netherlands among others have asked to help but are prohibited. WTF?

Found it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920

I wish crap like this surprised me. Am I the only one that thinks we would much better off if the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations were cut down to about 10% of their current size?

Another reason not to go swimming anywhere near the spill: Frickin' Sharks (no laser beams on them, but still):

http://news.discovery.com/earth/gulf-mexico-dead-zone-oil-spill.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

They're driven up near the coast by the expanding dead zone.

Looks like there's some hope of stopping this thing before the relief well after all:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/07/15/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

TJ wrote: Less toxic doesn't mean not toxic. It may or may not be better than the oil in the long run.

I still think the dispersants are the bigger problem than the oil. Sure the spill looks better since the oil is dispersed in tiny little droplets instead of big ugly oil slicks, but I think we went from one terrible environmental mess to two. Now we have all the oil, plus all the millions of gallons of the dispersants.