288 Seconds

A high school classmate sent me a link to this TPM graphic earlier. I had seen it this morning at Lotsa 'Splainin' 2 Do, but as I said in my reply, I had read the text of that post without paying very close attention to the graphic. But I do think the graphic is worth examining for a moment. Note that the estimated flow rate is now as much 300 times what was initially announced. That would be equivalent to a tanker truck driving by and emptying its load into the Gulf every 4 minutes and 48 seconds. Is it incompetence that caused the initial low estimates? An attempt to hide the magnitude of the mess? Is internal erosion causing the release rate to increase by orders of magnitude? Has the casing worn through or ruptured below the blowout preventer?

I don't know, and I don't really trust any source to be honest at this point. I read the transcript of Obama's speech yesterday and, like others, was disappointed. Prayer? Seriously? Pray? Why not sacrifice lambs, or firstborns, or something actually likely to motivate the big-bearded wizard in the sky?

In other news, Joe Barton apologizes for people being so stupid as to "misconstrue" his earlier apology to BP for the mean ol' gubmint for bein' mean to po-po li'l BP as meaning what he said. Or something to that effect. "Just don't go misconstruin' me again," he didn't add. Barton has also not apologized for a number of other historical and recent miscarriages of Justice, for example, "Joe Barton Would like to apologize to:"

• Larry Craig, who was unjustly crucified by the all powerful narrow stance elitists.
• Michael Vick, because seriously, if the good lord didn't want dogs to fight, he wouldn't have given them teeth. and if he didn't want them to be soaked in gasoline and burned to death, why would he have made them so flammable?
• Al Capone, for our totally unfair income tax system.
• Darth Vader, for blowing up the death star (twice!). that thing must have cost a lot of money to build. tell you what, we'll write you a check for it from the american taxpayer. copacetic?

Just think, it probably took you 288 seconds, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, to read this post.