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Corexit 9500 is the chemical dispersant used by British Petroleum (BP) in the Gulf Oil Spill. The Nalco scientist maintains it's safer than household dish soap, less toxic than ice cream. Report from KTRK, Houston (5.27.10)

As more oil workers fall sick with the increased use of chemical dispersants the contrast with how BP and the company which makes the dispersant being used could not be more stark.

I'm not a chemist so I can't vouch for the veracity of the claim made that Corexit is safer than dish soap. Perhaps it is for fish and sea life. However, I've rarely washed my dishes while wearing protective gloves, respiratory masks, and eye protection as Nalco (the company that makes it) requires for those handling or around the substance. And the British don't seem to think much of the stuff, having banned it for use in the North Sea. Something about causing headaches, vomiting and reproductive issues.

In the clip above a Nalco scientist maintains the safety of the product (noting while wearing the protective gear). And in fact on their website Nalco takes great pains to make the toxic shit stuff sound as innocuous as possible:

Corexit contains six primary ingredients. Examples of everyday products with specific ingredients in common with COREXIT 9500 include:

• One ingredient is used as a wetting agent in dry gelatin, beverage mixtures, and fruit juice drinks.
• A second ingredient is used in a brand-name dry skin cream and also in a body shampoo.
• A third ingredient is found in a popular brand of baby bath liquid.
• A fourth ingredient is found extensively in cosmetics and is also used as a surface-active agent and emulsifier for agents used in food contact.
• A fifth ingredient is used by a major supplier of brand name household cleaning products for "soap scum" removal.
• A sixth ingredient is used in hand creams and lotions, odorless paints and stain blockers.

Although there are less toxic dispersants available they aren't being used because of the unprecedented volumes used in the Gulf spill, now said to be well over 1,000,000 gallons.

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If anyone who subscribes to HBO has not watched their new series on Sunday night, The Newsroom yet, I'd recommend trying to catch up now, with their latest episode and who it upset just being one of the reasons: Sen. Mike Lee Takes Issue With HBO’s ‘The Newsroom’:

HBO’s new drama “The Newsroom” has been the target of critical derision since its premiere. Now a sitting senator is taking issue with the show.

Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) called HBO co-president Richard Plepler on Monday, after “The Newsroom” mentioned Lee in its latest episode. Reporting on the rise of the Tea Party, the show’s anchor Will McAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels, said “the centerpiece of Lee’s stump speech is repealing the 14th amendment.” McAvoy called it an “applause line” that will win Lee his primary by double digits.

Lee’s office, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, says the senator supported “clarifying” the interpretation of the constitutional amendment, but didn’t support its repeal. And Lee’s opponent in 2010, Bob Bennett, failed to make it to the primary after the Utah Republican Convention.

The senator’s office told the paper that the network is free to criticize Lee, so long as it does so accurately. “Lee obviously understands he is a public official and open to criticism,” Lee spokesman Brian Phillips said, “but this particular mistake was especially egregious and deserved to be corrected.”

Phillips told TPM that Lee believes HBO “responded positively” to his issue with the episode, but declined to comment further.

As someone who is a political junkie and who watches the kind of shows they're parodying here, I've really enjoyed the new series. It's been a mix of what you hope might happen if some conservative commentator finally got fed up enough with the Republican Party that they've been a member of to start speaking out about it, combined with a lot of really interesting side stories with all of the characters involved surrounding that anchor, the people who work for him, his old girlfriend who returns to the scene as his new producer and the new found conflicts with the station owners now that he's decided he actually wants to report the news rather than playing it safe and worrying about ratings.

The time frame for the show is set a couple of years ago, with the fictional anchor responding to both the BP oil disaster in the Gulf along with Arizona first passing their anti-immigration law and the rise of these "tea party" Republicans and their pay masters, the Koch brothers.

And for anyone else who isn't sure yet if they'd like to take the time to watch the series if you do have HBO and haven't caught it yet, here's the opening scene from the first episode.

Continue reading »

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman did some follow up to Al Jazeera's reporting on the state of the Gulf of Mexico and the fishing industry there, two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Execs Escape Punishment as Fallout from Disaster Continues to Impact Sea Life:

Two years since the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, we look at its impact on the Gulf of Mexico’s residents and wildlife even as no BP officials have faced criminal prosecution for the disaster. Eleven workers died when the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, and almost five million barrels of crude oil leaked into the ocean before the well was plugged after 51 days. BP maintains the Gulf is rapidly recovering thanks to the company’s efforts, but Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail describes how scientists say shrimp, fish and crabs in the Gulf of Mexico have been deformed by oil and chemicals released during the spill cleanup effort. Meanwhile, ProPublica’s environmental reporter, Abrahm Lustgarten, says the company failed to learn from past mistakes that could have helped avoid the explosion. He is the author of the new book, "Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster."

Full transcript is available at the link above. Our corporate media actually did a small amount of reporting on this news after Al Jazeera broke their story on the diseased fish and shrimp coming out of the Gulf, but I'll be surprised to see much more follow up from sources other than those like Al Jazeera and Democracy Now.

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I have to say, I could not agree more with Chris Hayes and what he said about Hilary Rosen during his show on Saturday and who CNN chooses to represent "the left" on their network. Sadly, I could say the same thing about a whole lot of their other pundits or which politicians they bring on as well. And it's not just CNN. The corporate media as a whole is terrible about giving those who actually represent the working class and their interests any time on the air.

I'll give Hayes credit for being one of the exceptions to that rule.

HAYES: If CNN is looking to represent the left in their crossfire style segments, they could do a lot better than a lobbyist messaging guru with a who's-who list of corporate clients – women who is head of the Recording Industry Association of America when it was crushing Napster and who was forced to severe ties with the Huffington Post in 2010 because she had BP as a client at a time when it was, well, in the news.” We know there are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, who could better represent the left in our national conversation.

Indeed there are.

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When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, 11 men died. Now, the man that was in charge of that disaster can't seem to recall their names.

In a deposition recorded June 8, 2011, former BP CEO Tony Hayward named one man correctly (Karl Kleppinger) and got two others wrong. He admitted that he couldn't remember the rest at all.

"Do you remember any of the names of the individuals who lost their lives?" plaintiff attorney Robert Cunninham asked Hayward.

"I remember some of them: James Anderson, Gordon Clark, Karl Kleppinger, I think," the former CEO replied. "I can’t remember all of them."

Judge Sally Shushan ordered Rupert Murdoch's The Daily to take down the leaked video but the publication has refused.

From Democracy Now -- "5 Million Barrels of Oil Does Not Disappear": Author, Activist Antonia Juhasz on the BP Spill, One Year Later:

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the worst maritime oil spill in history. Last year on April 20 an oil rig leased by oil giant BP exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and releasing nearly 200 million gallons of oil, tens of millions of gallons of natural gas and 1.8 million gallons of chemicals. We speak to Antonia Juhasz, author of the new book, Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill. Juhasz attended the BP shareholders meeting in London last week and spoke on behalf of Gulf Coast residents denied entry.

Full transcript at Democracy Now's site. One year later after all the ambulance chasing and 24/7 coverage of the disaster in the Gulf, we sure aren't hearing much from our mainstream media on the subject. Although Andrea Mitchell did let Kenneth Feinberg come on today and do a little PR work for BP on MSNBC.

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While complaining about President Obama going to Brazil and encouraging them to do more offshore oil drilling, Fox’s Megyn Kelly allows right wing radio talk show host Mike Gallagher to get away with saying there’s no oil remaining in the Gulf after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.

GALLAGHER: No, he’s worried about another one because one accident, which by the way, they still can’t find any remaining oil. That was supposed to be the catastrophe that ended our planet. We were all going to curl up and die from the BP oil spill. Remember how that was reported? And now they can’t even find any residue, any oil remaining. It was not the catastrophe that the do-gooders thought it was going to be.

Mike wants the Fox viewers to believe that just because the media refuses to report on the remaining oil, it must have magically disappeared. That wasn't the only ridiculous thing he said during this segment but it certainly was the most outrageous.

I guess no one bothered to show him this, not that it would matter. I imagine he'd still lie about it even if they did. --Oil Still Leaking New Deepwater Horizon Drill Site

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Anyone else going to be shocked if this is not caused by the massive amount of oil and dispersants these poor animals have been exposed to? There has been almost a media blackout in any coverage of what's going on in the Gulf nationally.

More Dead Dolphin Babies Found along Gulf Coast:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the number of dead dolphins found since Jan. 1 in the area affected by last year's oil spill is now 67, with 35 of them premature or newborn calves.

NOAA regional spokeswoman Kim Amendola says five dead calves were reported Friday in Mississippi or Alabama.

Scientists are looking into whether any unusual deaths in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill area may be related to toxins from oil or dispersants. However, they're also investigating whether it could be related to the cold weather or a disease.

And the nightmare continues for Gulf residents -- Gulf Shores beaches still seeing oil:

GULF SHORES, Alabama (WALA) - Joey Phillips, who owns property along the beach in Gulf Shores, found the tide washed more than water ashore.

Phillips said he was walking with his wife along the water early Sunday morning. When they had finished, the bottoms of his wife's feet were black.

The remnants of oil are so tiny, you may miss them. Once you touch a piece, the crude oil smears your hands. Phillips said they are carried in with the tide.

"I reached down and touched them and it's oil, little bitty tiny pellets where the dispersant has washed them up," said Phillips.

Philips said clean-up crews were out working the beach Sunday morning, but missed the tiny remnants of oil. He said he walked behind the crew picking up quarter-sized tar balls.

Phillips said he told the crews about the oil and at first, they told him it was just mud.

Read on...

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On Morning Joe Thursday morning, NBC anchor Brian Williams stopped by to discuss the different stories that the media covered during 2010 and he had the temerity to blame the media’s lack of coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster once the gusher was capped in the Gulf on the public losing interest in the topic.

WILLIAMS: And in between for those of us that have a love affair the state of Louisiana, with the southern portion of the coastline in the United States, the one story I think that’s been forgotten, because it’s cognitive dissonance looking at that live camera, of that spewing oil. We as Americans certainly like to pick ourselves up and recover and move on. And you can go down there to Venice Louisiana and not see too much in the way of pick up and clean up crews.

I’m happy to read that the Chevy Volt is being made of 100,000 pounds of plastic body parts that are a product of 100 miles of oil soaked boom. That’s what happened to all that stuff. They transported it and they’re churning it up and melting it down and making plastic body parts for the Chevy Volt. […]

So something good came out of this awful year. But I don’t think, I think we’ve all moved on and forgot what it was like to wake up on this broadcast and others every morning… let’s go to the live picture and just the helplessness that we watched.

So that’s what I’m going to remember this year for because that area already meant so much to me and I might add a person here at this table, the only one who represented it in Congress.

Yeah, it’s a good thing all that oil just magically disappeared now that there’s no more ambulance for the media to chase in the form of that gusher of oil. Good grief. Somehow I doubt anyone who’s still living with the oil on their shores and the dispersants or anyone that wonders if seafood from the Gulf will ever be safe to eat again feels the same way. Hey Brian, there’s still a story to cover if you and your cohorts would get off your butts and go down there and do some follow up. The public didn’t lose interest in the story. The media just refuses to cover it now that it will actually take some investigative journalism to do so and bucking the establishment they love to suck up to.

h/t to Fran for bringing this up in their podcast this week. I'd almost forgotten I sent the tip on this to the team via email until she and Driftie brought it up there.